Cerebral Cortex

1M4
 

The happy news I cryptically alluded to last week is now something I can make official: I just signed a book contract with OUP for 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴!   It's a book it feels like I've been writing in my head for a long, long time -- since middle school, kinda? And unless Williams somehow returns to write another entry in the series, I'm treating it a chance to provide a properly 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 investigation into these scores, all nine of them.   Even Rise of Skywalker?? 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 Rise of Skywalker!   My hope is this book does some justice to the complexity, challenge, and sheer magic of this music.   Now, back to the grindstone!   https://www.facebook.com/Falstaft/posts/pfbid0L6wUjeDDxj6AmhwHh1f9obrVMJfYbPx4GJM8YaEWiZtqxwp37A88monPFVDxBQ26l  
Congratulations, @Falstaft!

I've honestly never felt like he's gotten remotely as close to winning as he was for Memoirs. That was in the bag.
 
 
Seems fine here
 

It's common knowledge that Goldsmith was a chromogen not unlike Bernard Herrmann.  Marco Beltrami said that Goldsmith had a chip on his shoulder that he never found his Spielberg or Lucas which I thought was a dig at JW.  This sort of stuff isn't really that big a deal because it's so common.  We tend to compare ourselves to our peers rather than to ourselves and at the top levels like these two were, it can be fiercely competitive but doesn't mean that much.  It's sort of just an emotional response but if given a moment to think more clearly on it, I think Goldsmith would refine his criticism to more of a backhanded compliment.  When JG died, his daughter published online about 50 pages of a bio she was writing about her dad.  I think the book was either never completed or the project fell through, but I read it and she quoted JG commenting on many of his contemporaries.  Again, it wasn't personal, just chromogeny comments when comparing himself to others feeling he didn't get an award someone else did for something he felt was inferior, type of thing.  So what.  Saying it doesn't make it true and isn't insightful to what he even really means.

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I think he is asked so much that large stretches without anything rarely come up.  He talks about the tuba and viola concerto being somewhat spontaneous.  Heartwood probably the same.  I wonder how much the piano concerto is him and how much Ax asking.  
 
I do think that he loves the popular vein of composing more than he realizes or at least sometimes lets on.  Jumping at the ESPN thing the way he did and the comments in this interview point to him wanting more than just concert-hall composing.  
 
50 years from now, musicologists are going to be dumbfounded that he pulled off a lifetime worth of work for the concert hall and a lifetime worth of work for movies (and a hell of a lot of occasion pieces to boot).   
 
He seems so balanced.  His comments on Goldsmith and others being unhappy due to their career frustrations is so perceptive.  He found the recipe for a lifetime of happiness as a composer--something that very, very few composers (from Mozart to Beethoven to Goldsmith) have pulled off.  

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video:
 

I quite liked this post from a Reddit thread on the video: