Loert

That's a really nice sounding mark tree.

Cool! It's great to get these things down on paper. I'm currently figuring out the harmonies in preparation for a piano arrangement of Helena's theme. Most of your labellings look correct to me, though I hear some things differently. For line 2, I hear something like: So bar 2 I would say is Ab9 -> Em/G And bar 4 I think is just Ab diminished -> D. As for line 3 bar 4, is the 2nd beat F(b6)? (b6 as in Db?) I just hear F (or FMaj7 at most). I also agree with @filmmusic that A is leading up to the main "first subject" which is A'. (P.S. I just love the elusive, luscious harmonies in this theme...JW knocked it out of the park as far as I'm concerned)

My standouts so far are: Prologue Helena's Theme To Morocco Auction at Hotel Tuk Tuk Chase Water Ballet Battle of Syracuse Helena's Theme (ASM version) I like it but...I wish it were a bit more upbeat! Now I'm curious to see what other music to this film there is left to discover... (I noticed that none of the music from the officially released clips appears in the album, with the exception of the winds at 4:05 of The Grafikos which appear at the very end of the Archimedes tomb clip)

This is absolutely beautiful. Sounds like something straight out of the Golden Age. I love it!

Both, sort of! I have to be careful with how I word this... My personal opinion is that, whilst Shore wrote some good themes and crafted a rich tapestry of leitmotifs, and had a great sense of what music the film needed at a specific point (and what Middle-earth needed overall), the actual note-by-note, measure-by-measure writing of the score, in terms of stuff like orchestration, choices of instrumentation, counterpoint etc. is rather weak. And for that reason I have real trouble listening to the score on its own. So I would be really curious to hear what the score would've sounded like had it been written by someone with more knowledge and experience with the orchestra, which JW undoubtedly has. At the same time, I realise that the "heaviness" of Shore's score gives the films a certain quality which JW probably wouldn't have been able to provide in the same way. A "whimsy" LOTR score would certainly be worse than what we have already.

LOTR, but using the themes written by Shore.

Which measure is this? The first measure has 4 notes in the trombones, 2 notes in the timps. The second measure has 5 notes in the trombones, 2 notes in the timps. The third measure has 4 notes in the trombones, 2 notes in the timps. The fourth measure has 5 notes in the trombones, 2 notes in the timps. The fourth measure also has the first 2 notes of the main Indy theme, in the trumpets (notes 1 and 2 in Jay's diagram). The fifth measure has 4 notes in the trumpets, the continuation of the Indy theme (notes 3-6 in Jay's diagram). Where are you guys seeing/hearing 3 notes? Obviously KK was not referring to the B theme, even though it begins with 3 notes. She must have just mis-spoken.

Do they not teach maths in North America?

This reminds me of that time when JW mentioned how he uses the "7th on the bottom" when writing suspense music and all the music theorists on JWFAN went berserk trying to figure out what he was talking about

Bartok is my favourite composer but I wouldn't say Concerto for Orchestra is my favourite work of his (still very good, mind you). E.g. I think the Dance Suite is better, and more accessible as well.

I think it's after DoD that John Williams has finally thrown in the towel and turned to clinical psychology:

Cormac McCarthy has died. I only finished reading Blood Meridian a couple of weeks ago, and The Road before that. The images he conjured up will forever be etched in my brain...for better or worse. R.I.P.

Is that Spielberg playing the clarinet at the end?

We need something like a BBC HardTalk but for John Williams: "Mr. Williams, would you like to apologize to the Holst estate for lifting the ending chords from Mars?" "Do you think it's acceptable for film composers to steal from other composers as widely as you have done?" And probably the hardest of all... "How much music exactly did William Ross contribute to Chamber of Secrets?"

It only really gets going at 1h 02 mins. In all seriousness, the version I most often listen to is Barenboim's. I made a suite which lasts 1h 43 minutes. By the end it feels like the world is singing. Onto something entirely different though, I've been listening to Brahms lately, particularly the 1st Symphony, and particularly the last movement. What an amazing piece.

Are you sure you're not John Williams? Because I'm pretty sure his assistant prints out JWFan threads for him to read too.

Can they not figure out who the real Indiana Jones is? Harrison Ford's looks haven't changed that much, surely...

The point is not whether the music gives me sublime feelings. The point is whether the music sounds like it's trying to give me sublime feelings. Wagner is one of few composers I've listened to who have always hit the mark, at least for me (another is in the title of this website...) Nolan's films give me the weird sense that I feel like I can see the mark but he's not hitting it. All the pieces are there, just the execution is off. A very particular annoyance, but an annoyance it is.

Wagner himself may have tried to "bring the word" to mankind, and even though it didn't really work (well, certainly not for Nietzsche), I don't really mind because I don't get that sense from the art itself. You do not have to have read "Kunst und Religion" to be deeply moved by the Prelude to Parsifal's 3rd Act. (In a way you could say that Wagner was actually aiming for the stars but landed on the moon.) So I'm not too fussed with the supra-artistic intent of the maker, rather the art itself, which I think is where the distinction lies.

It seems like my use of the term "self important" may have been a bit of a red herring, as it's a bit of an ambiguous term (to what extent does a piece of art has a "self"? certainly not in the way that humans have a self). I am also a "Wagnerian" - in fact, I was just listening to Act 2 from Gotterdammerung yesterday while walking in the park (as one does). He is certainly among my top classical composers. Now, even though Wagner felt he was "above" others (he had a recurring dream of conversing with Beethoven and Shakespeare in heaven/he kept running away from his creditors/wouldn't stop pestering Minna with love letters and drag her into his sorry poor life of a German composer in 19th-century Europe), the term "self-important" has never occurred to me when listening to his music. His music is important, that's for certain. But for me, self-importance means something like "feeling you have something to say when you actually can't say much". The OED says that to be self-important is to "have an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance" (emphasis mine). Given this definition, to say that Wagner's music or Wagner himself are "self-important" is actually absurd. Because his music is maybe the most important music to be produced in the last 200 years, at least in terms of its effects on Western culture (we all know the cliche that "film music wouldn't exist without Wagner"). But even societal effects aside, I honestly have never listened to a Wagner opera (I'm talking Rienzi onwards) and found myself thinking "Man, that's a bit of an exaggeration. He's trying too hard here". I might think that of Mahler sometimes, or Stravinsky etc. But not Wagner. I've always thought of his music as "epic", "dramatic", "daring", "visionary" in the best possible sense. But with Nolan, I definitely do get the sense when watching his films that he's trying too hard. The saying "Shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you'll end up amongst the stars" comes to mind, with Nolan being firmly amongst the stars (almost literally, in fact...). It's not because of one particular thing, it's more the overall tone of the direction. E.g. one shot that comes to mind is that of the Joker clapping in a cell in TDK. I do see how it's a good shot in theory, but the way it's framed, the tone, makes me think "Oh, I see what he's trying to do..." and that's it. Similarly for the one liners: "You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain"/"Some people just want to watch the world burn". They are good lines, but within the entire context of the film they feel so "on-the-nose" for some reason. At least for me. I do think the music actually has something to do with it, the way the films are scored do not help with the sense of "self-importance" in my eyes (ears). So, to sum up, I have nothing against seriousness in art, and I even agree that there's less of it now than there used to be. But Nolan's seriousness is just not the kind of seriousness I warm to. (By the way, I preferred Batman Begins for some reason. Does that say anything about my film tastes? God knows...)

I struggle to remember 10 movies I watched ever. But I'll try. Most of these are pretty recent as I tend not to watch older movies unless I'm sure I'll love them. La La Land - felt like a 2nd pressing of what it was supposed to be. Just subpar The Shape of Water - just didn't really get it, was bored by the last quarter of the film Bohemian Rhapsody - the Live AID sequence was pretty good but other than that felt more like a shell of a movie Everything Everywhere All At Once - the worst movie I've seen in my life All Quiet on the Western Front - was disappointed by the ending, felt a bit cheap The Dark Knight - I haven't watched this in at least 10 years, so my opinion may change now, but at the time I found the self-importance of the film obnoxious. It's a problem I have with Nolan's style in general (yeah I know, another Nolan hater, how boring). I'm not sure how to describe my issue exactly. Perhaps one way to put it is that, when I watch his films, I'm aware of the emotions I'm "supposed" to feel, but don't actually feel them. I don't hate all Nolan though, I quite liked The Prestige (I'd like to see Memento, haven't yet). Independence Day: Resurgence - I will never forget the sense of overwhelming disappointment in the audience when this finished playing in the cinema L.A. Confidential - I watched this a while back and completely lost track of the story midway. Should watch it again at some point probably... Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - I fell asleep twice in the cinema Can't think of any more at the moment

This gorgeous piece invaded my mind last night and wouldn't let me sleep:

Peak film-music fanatic moment. We have a short clip from 40+ year-old concert piece which has been played and recorded to death by professional and amateur orchestras alike, and someone decides it's worth taking up 17 seconds of Youtube's video storage just because it was in a trailer. It even has an out-of-tune timpani to boot. Just because you could...doesn't mean you should. </rant>

2:02- 2:16 I love how the hissing effect blends with the orchestra. Sounds like being attacked by high-pressured steam.

No Solo?