aviazn

We had a thread a while back about the first Mission Impossible, thanks to a nugget @Maestro dug up:

When I was a kid and went to bible camp, we were taught to thank the Lord before dinner by singing the Superman Prayer: Thank you Gooooood for giving us foood Thank you Gooooood for giving us foood For the food that we eeeee-eat And the friends that we meeeee-eet Thank you Gooooood for giving us foood There was some choreography too, punching the air with our fists on each line. A family friend taught me one for Mission Impossible: God. is. great and God. is. good and Let. us. thank him For. our. foo-ood Dooooooooooooooo Doo-doo-doooooooo Doo-doo-doooooooo A-men

Another moment from March of the Resistance that I'd never noticed until watching this score reduction video is the little string line that runs below the Resistance fanfare, marked "tertiary fluff" at 2:02. I love it—it sounds like a Scottish jig, something out of Holst's St. Paul's Suite or Malcolm Arnold.

The stretto from March of the Resistance. For illustrative purposes, I'll link this piano cover, with a tip of the hat to the OP.

Fair enough, but Simone's rendition of Buckbeak's Flight is maybe my favorite piano transcription of JW's work of all time.

For me, it's a tie between E.T. and me… …and the theme from Omaha Beach in SPR. Not Hymn to the Fallen, the other one. Just something about how simple it is in construction, how stately it unfolds, and the aching suspensions.

Well, this full fan-edit that these clips belong to is out now. I came across this article about it on The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/4/15542662/rogue-one-fan-edit-john-williams-michael-giacchino-watch The two clips he already posted contain most of the good stuff in terms of the JW-substitutions, but there is another 5 minute stretch where he just drops in Escape From Cloud City/Hyperspace and it matches perfectly, from K-2SO's death to Chirrut flipping the master switch with just a few microedits. And the music that accompanies Luke struggling on the wires matches with every time the action cuts back to Jyn and Cassian struggling in the file vault. Pretty cool, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the temp track.

The main melody's first phrase reminds me of The American President. Lovely theme, but I could do without the over-the-top modulations every time Kobe makes a shot.

I don't know who did this, but they're not that bad. I know it's just a fun exercise, but I'll be honest—my heart soared a little bit when Here They Come started pounding over the Scarif space battle.

Lol I guess I was just being slow. ^_^ One time when a few friends and I decided to watch ANH, I convinced them to take a soju shot every time a leitmotif was heard in the score. I was the first to pass out, I think even before Alderaan went boom. (In my defense, I was also severely jet lagged!!)

Haha, you misread that. Myself = in my opinion, not 'by myself'! Actually, I usually watch them with friends or family over here (Korea) who've never seen Star Wars and want to figure out what the fuss is all about and watch them all in order. There's usually a lot of drinking involved. Like I said, it's interesting to see it through their eyes. But I do enjoy them!

It's interesting how people in countries where the OT was never released experience the prequels. One of my Korean friends who's 30 now said he grew up with the prequels as they came out but never watched the OT. His parents didn't show it to him because they'd never seen it—it was never widely shown here. He knew about the character Darth Vader through pop culture osmosis and he knew that he was evil personified, but had no idea Anakin would grow up to be him until the helmet slid on at the end of ROTS—at which point, he said, his mind was completely blown. He really loves the prequels. I hear it's mostly the same in China—the OT didn't screen there until a couple years ago at the Shanghai film festival. It's no wonder TFA flopped at the box office there. I enjoy rewatching the prequels, myself. And I think if you watched them at 10 years old and really had no conception of the OT, they probably look better.

Well, there's the third act of ROTS, of course. Battle of the Heroes is a fine Dies Irae, and then you have Padme's funeral. I've always wished for an expanded concert arrangement of that theme.

Listening to the first half again, the less and less like Williams it sounds—the Giacchino string slides, the awkward hit that it lands on, and the random male voice sample.

Sounds like trailer composers to me. That line with the Force theme and the little tag from Rey's theme is exactly what JW did in the TFA credits. I posted this in the General Discussion thread, but to me it sounds like trailer composers—good ones—who got to play in JW's sandbox of TFA themes. (And maybe borrowed a little bit of Lost-mode Giacchino.) They're good, but it doesn't sound like JW to me. All the quotes are there, but the orchestration is a little obvious and it doesn't quite have the same polish.

I LOLed at that Giacchino Lost moment. In any case, effective! Would be very surprised to find JW had any involvement in it, though. The callbacks to Rey's theme, Kylo, The Abduction—it sounds like trailer composers who got to play in JW's sandbox of TFA themes.

It may never have hit some of them. True story (as best I can recall it): When I was in high school, I went to Germany on an exchange program with a school in the town of Sigmaringen. One day, my exchange partner—who was as big a fan of Star Wars as I was—invited me to come along with him to his youth orchestra rehearsal after school. The reason I might be interested, he told me, was that their music director had played some brass instrument on some of the original Star Wars sessions with the LSO. "Ah yes, the old war stories," his dad snorted. "Always going on about his Star Wars glory days." But that sounded terrific to me, so I went, and sat through their entirely unremarkable rehearsal of school band arrangements of some classical standards and The Lion King, and when it was over I went up to the director (whose name I've long since forgotten) and asked him if it was true, if he'd really played on the Star Wars sessions. Yes, he said—he'd been a university student in London 1977, and his teacher was an LSO member. Since Williams asked for double brass, several of the players brought their students. Wide-eyed, I followed-up, "And did you guys know then how big the score was going to be?" He sneered and said, "Nah, we had no idea because it was nothing original. It was just second-rate neoromantic rip-offs. Nobody thought it was going to be anything. You want to know what was really special? A few weeks later, I sat in on another session at Abbey Road…" and he proceeded to tell me about a jazz ensemble that recorded a tremendously innovative record (whose name now escapes me), full of bold lines and unconventional time signatures. I nodded along, trying to hide how crestfallen I was, and never got another word out of him about Star Wars. As disappointed as 18-year-old me was, on its face, his recollection of the orchestra's reaction seemed plausible. Of course, it's entirely possible the guy is just a pretentious hater. Nevertheless, it always makes me think twice whenever I hear LSO players talking about how incredible it was to play on those sessions, and wonder how much of those glowing recollections are enhanced by time, and whether at the time they really thought anything much of John Williams at all. And also, I wish I'd remembered the name of that jazz group.

Thanks for the background, @Miguel Andrade!

Exactly! Which is why I was surprised to learn that at one point he was openly campaigning for a quote-unquote "serious" gig. I knew he pushed for higher standards at the Boston Pops and that included new programming and encouraging its audience to take the music and musicianship more seriously, but I always took that to be a part of his mission to revivify the Pops—not broadcasting his desire for a different job. @Miguel Andrade said it was basically open knowledge that he was looking for one, but I wonder if that was just widespread speculation based on his programming, or if Williams has ever spoken about a desire—or even an openness—to be director of a major ensemble. Didn't he conduct the occasional BSO series? I wonder if that was a friendly gesture from management to their Pops leader, or a quasi-serious tryout, or management's way of calming him down by letting him play with the big-boy toys once in a while. It would be fascinating to ask him! Yeah, I definitely agree. I guess the whole thing also surprises me because beyond his ability at the podium (which is perfectly well-suited to his needs), Williams just doesn't seem to have the network or background for a "serious" music director. His gift, to me, is to bridge decades of knowledge of pop music and jazz with impeccable craft—the perfect candidate for the Pops, really. But he collaborates with cross-over artists like Yo-Yo and Perlman and Audra McDonald—not young up-and-coming composers or performers. He just doesn't seem to hang out with the crowd that would conventionally be required to program a regular "serious" season. But one could argue that's less a reflection of his personality than of how his role with the Pops shaped his own career. I'm just fascinated to think about a Williams that at one point in his career could have taken a much more "serious" turn.

No, I don't think he's deserving of a big five post—it just doesn't boggle my mind to imagine that orchestra managers might be willing to overlook that and install a splashy, less-than-qualified candidate in the name of box office. It does boggle my mind to think that they'd consider a splashy, less-than-qualified film composer. As a conductor of classical and contemporary work by other composers, I think he's rather pedestrian and straightforward.

Woah, never knew Williams was seriously looking for this. As in, to be music director for, like, a "big five" orchestra? Do we know if he was ever in the running for one, or tried out for one? Has he ever talked on the record about this ambition? I mean, makes sense—he's a musician after all, and who wouldn't want to? But it frankly boggles my mind to imagine what Williams' later career would have looked like if he'd been hired to lead a major orchestra (or even a minor orchestra). The Boston Pops, a two year footnote enroute to a music directorship in, say, Chicago. Film Night at Millennium Park. It also boggles my mind to think that any orchestra would have taken a serious look at him—not because he's not deserving, but because of 1980s-era film score snobbery.

Well the city I live in now has a population density of 17,200/km2 (44,600/mi2).

I saw him there too! Great concert, a perfect evening at Tanglewod. Took this picture while lying on the lawn that night.

"Steven, you need a better composer than I am for this film. You need Henry Mancini." "I know, but…"

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-henry-mancini-tribute-20170402-htmlstory.html I really hope there's video of this! h/t @Maestro for writing up this gem.