Loert

That's absolutely awful news. RIP. I think Powell sets these up earlier and uses the "set date and time of your post" function so that they get posted every Tuesday at 5pm GMT.

The last bar should have 2 crotchet rests, not 3. This is so that the first and last bar add together to create a whole bar. It's actually something I remember quite vividly from when we had whole-class music lessons in primary school, because of how weird I think it is. If a pickup bar in a 4/4 piece has 1 beat, does that mean that a soloist playing the piece can get up and bow after three beats on the final bar? Or if the pickup bar has three beats, is one beat enough? Or 5 beats? Surely the audience would just assume the last bar would have 4 beats since the piece is in that meter? And although it would make sense if there's a repeat sign there, it still doesn't solve this "problem" when the repeat is used up...you still end up with a cut-off final bar. I'm glad I'm not the only one on here who doesn't see much an issue with the score... Oh, btw, welcome to the forum Dev.

Which means that the full suite has been released?! Whoopeee!

As you can see, Williams is absolutely horrified by this terrible news.

I think the Resistance theme has some potential. It can become an alternate to the "Rebel fanfare". You mean the "doo doo doo" bit that plays alongside Kylo Ren's falling motif in the end credits? I wanna hear that played on a contrabass tuba.

Just returned from the premiere of "A Prussian Requiem". For those out of the loop, it's a ~40 minute oratorio, divided into 10 parts, based on the true history of Moltke the Younger, a Prussian chief who in 1914, after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, convinced Kaiser Wilhelm II to carry out the Schlieffen Plan to defeat France. Moltke himself had been working on this strategic plan for many years and was (supposedly) determined to prove himself to be a national hero, just like his uncle Moltke the Elder. But the Schlieffen Plan ended up pretty much a failure and lead to, among other things, Great Britain declaring war on Germany...hence setting the First World War in full motion. Moltke was "the prick who started it all" (to quote John Powell). Anyway, I thought "The Prussian Requiem" was brilliant. The libretto (by Michael Petry) is strong, and the way the music decorated and coloured the meaning of each and every word in some parts was very interesting to listen to. It is hard to describe the style of the music - I'd call it "free tonality". It is certainly not atonal, however Part 6 does feature a (very!) striking array of woodwind passages which sounds quite contemporary and original. What I found refreshing was the fact that the music itself is not similar to Powell's typical output. I think there was only instance in the whole work where I "recognized" a kind of Powell-ian melodic shape in the chorus, but it was literally just a snippet, and on the whole Powell's approach to this work seemed starkingly different from the sort of 'pop' sound he uses in his film scores; it had much more of a neo-romantic edge to it. Now, I didn't want to spoil the music very much, but I feel like I need to talk specifically about "Part 10: A Gift" (the last part). This part contains the climax of the entire work (although it's not so much a climax as it is a natural ending based on the story contained in the libretto). It is probably the most 'film-music-like' sounding part of the oratorio, and in my opinion, the most emotionally charged musical passage Powell has written yet. The reason why I say it is "film-music-like" is because it's so vivid that the imagery hits you right in the face. I would say that, if you're not particularly interested in listening to the whole oratorio, I would at least recommend you listen to this part on its own, because it really is a landmark in Powell's musical output. So yeah, I can't wait to listen to the whole thing again on the upcoming album. And I totally recommend any John Powell, film music and/or classical music lovers to listen as well. It's a fabulous work and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

The Truman Show (1998). This was a great film. It's fun and interesting, watching Truman "live" inside a television show, and thought-provoking watching how Big Brother tries to justify it all. A very nice soundtrack too! I particularly loved Philip Glass's "Living Waters" - such a haunting piece...

Exactly. We all know your profile pic is photoshopped, TGP!

Deal with it.

Ticket bought. I have never actually listened to Soundings before, so I will restrain from doing so until I hear it live. Oh, and I've always wanted to hear Ginastera and Copland live as well.

Now THIS is my jam!

Ah yes, No Man's Sky. As soon as I saw that first reveal in the VGX awards I knew I had to get my hands on this game. But I've been waiting for the release so long now that I've almost completely forgotten about it! By the way, if anybody wants to see what a procedurally-generated universe looks like, I heartily recommend SpaceEngine. It's essentially a piece of software which lets you fly around a huge universe, filled with billions of procedurally-generated galaxies, each filled with billions of star systems, many of which contain procedurally-generated planets. The guy who created it is a physicist and has tried to make the world as scientifically accurate as possible. It's not really a game since it doesn't feature any gameplay, but still it's fun to fly around in (and stunning to look at). I like to use SpaceEngine when I'm listening to a podcast or piece of music for example. And, what's more, it's free to download!

I love John Wilson for the sole reason that his orchestra performed some of Scott Bradley's "Tom and Jerry" music at the BBC Proms: Nice to know he's a fan of JW too!

Woah, I can't believe I forgot this one! That "When You Wish Upon a Star" arrangement is really quite beautiful. Also didn't Williams once say that this was his favourite piece of film music he wrote?

Just for the record here's a more detailed analysis of what I was talking about (everything has been transposed to D minor for easier comparison): This is the flute line from the middle, quiet section of the Imperial March (LISTEN here, note I used the string line later on but the melody is exactly the same, only transposed down an octave). Now compare the labelled fragments A, B and C with Kylo Ren's main motif as it appears in Jakku Village (LISTEN): and the "falling" motif as it appears in The Abduction (LISTEN): Fragment C seems to appear in the main horn melody (this is what I was talking about in my earlier post), and the trumpets above it also hint at fragment A. Whereas the falling motif looks like it's built out of fragment B entirely. I guess it's interesting that Williams appears to base Kylo Ren's music on the middle, quieter section of the Imperial March, but turning it into loud brass statements. Almost as if Kylo Ren has only grasped a small part of Vader's legacy and turned it into something bigger than it actually is, but never getting close to the main power (i.e. Vader's theme, which only plays when Ren looks at Vader's mask.) Does that even make any sense? Anyway, Rey's theme seems, in turn, to be literally reflecting Kylo Ren's theme (LISTEN): ...by playing the last three notes, then playing the first three notes in reverse (but G# is brought down to G). *gasp* I wonder what this could mean? (LISTEN) Another "link" which at least appears in the concert suite of Rey's theme is the repeating trumpets, which sound almost like the repeating trumpets playing over Kylo Ren's theme in Jakku Village. It might just be a purely musical choice though.

My current favourite is TFA. Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade are really good as well.

When I have time tomorrow I'll try to notate and play it, to make it clearer... Basically, the Ren falling motif is a very slow version of the beginning of the third flute phrase (the one that stretches two bars). The pitches are not exactly the same, but the melodic contour definitely is.

I have played this game before...I might have a go at this, if I am able to overcome my fear of work first...

*faints* @Michael May you live in fortune and good health for the rest of your days, thank you SO much for linking this!

Compare Kylo Ren's falling motif (4:20 on Jakku Attack) to the flutes in the Imperial March (at precisely 0:48, and later on in the strings) While I was recently listening to TFA OST I remembered what Williams was saying about Kylo Ren's motif being an extension of Darth Vader's theme, and it suddenly clicked.

This is probably embarrasingly late for me to mention, but I just realised that Kylo Ren's motif is derived from the flutes in the Imperial March. But I'm guessing this has been obvious to you all since the OST release, right? (I did a search on the forum but I couldn't find anything on this)

Like some others here I'm a big fan of the original Tomb Raider series. I basically grew up with the classic Core games, TR4 I think being my first video game I ever played and TR3 being near the top of my list of "favourite video games of all time". I also played the early Crystal Dynamics trilogy obsessively (though I eventually ended up preferring the classics). But I knew the rebooted series wasn't going to be for me ever since I saw the Crossroads trailer. Helicopters, explosions, crashing planes and tearing off mercenaries' faces with an axe just didn't ring with my idea of Tomb Raider at all. But as a TR fan, and out of curiosity, I went out and bought the game. I think my biggest issue with the last two games is the scripted gameplay, in particular where you have the illusion that you're in control when you actually aren't. Some cases in point (warning, minor spoilers): TR2013, crossing the log near the beginning (video). Lara wobbles around and almost falls over, but the player's inputs have nothing to do with it. In fact the wobbling is all scripted, and it's impossible for the player to make Lara fall off the log at all. There is no danger and there is no reward, even though the game tries to make it look like there is. TR2013, climbing up the radio tower (video). It's all well and good for the camera to show how high Lara is and how splattered she would be if she falls off, but you CAN'T fall off. Once again, it's all scripted and completely out of the player's hands. You just press "Up" and Lara climbs (and slips) herself. TR2013, climbing up the Ziggurat (video). When I was playing the game, at precisely 6:59 in the video, I thought I would be able to make the jump up to the ice above Lara, without having to go right. So I tried it...only to see Lara jump to the left into the chasm below. Huh? I must've pressed the left button on my keyboard by mistake when I was meaning to jump up. Oh well. I reloaded the checkpoint and tried again, this time making sure that I was pressing up. But no, Lara jumps to the left again! And what I realised then was that the game had assumed that I would know to jump right and "warped" the controls to favour that jump. It didn't even allow me to try jumping up and seeing for myself that the gap was too big. ROTTR, a good one I can remember is when the player gains control on the ledge right at the beginning of Syria. Before entering the dark pipe a message pops up on the screen saying something like "Press Ctrl to WALK and move Lara more carefully". Well, it turns out that unless you jump, Lara will not fall off the ledge. Whether you're running or walking, it doesn't make a damn difference. So wtf is the game telling me to move Lara more carefully? These sorts of instances , where the player loses control of the character in favour of story progression, is something I absolutely despise in video games that are supposed to be "action-adventure". Why not just go all the way and make a movie instead? And another thing I wanted to mention is that, IMO, Core's idea of "exploration" and Crystal's idea of "exploration" are two entirely different thing. For Crystal, "exploration" means scouring huge spaces in order to find maps, documents, relics, deer, cave entrances, tomb entrances, mushrooms, eagle eggs and lanterns to be shot down for no reason whatsoever. For Core, "exploration" means figuring out how to go forward in order to complete the game. This type of exploration is virtually non-existent in the reboot games. For starters, you're always told where to go, either by looking on your map or following the big beacon in Survival Instinct. And getting there is basically no issue at all. It's usually just a matter of running over there, maybe with a bit of climbing, often having to pass through a batch of enemies. In both games there are a couple of puzzles on the main path, and that's the only time when you have to really think how to proceed, but these are fairly simple anyway and there are far too few of them. Someone might say: "Well then don't look on the map and don't use Survival Instinct, if you want to figure out where to go next". But figuring out where to go is not the point. Figuring out how to go forward, is. In TR3, there's a level where you start off in a prison cell, with no weapons. And that's it, there's nothing else the game gives to help you "figure it out". No waypoints. The player of course knows where he/she has to go: out of this place! But the real game aspect comes from figuring out how to get out of this place. How to move forward, essentially. This is something I find extremely lacking in the recent games. At least the LAU trilogy had this element (from what I can remember!) Anyway, there goes my rant. When I have more time I'd like to pick up The Witness. I've heard very good things said about it and I'd love to dig my teeth into some puzzle-solving... Yep, me too. It takes more time, but it makes the game world much more immersive for me. My first TES game was Oblivion, and I fast travelled everywhere. Eventually I came back and replayed it, but I avoided all fast-travelling, and it was a totally different experience!

You're welcome! And thank you all for your generous feedback!

It's like he's never seen Williams lift his right arm before.