Marian Schedenig

I won a beer last year because a girl from choir claimed that Williams was in fact a Sir an insisted on betting against me.

So, how about a meet up tomorrow before/during/after the concert? Any suggestions for where and when? We'll probably be roaming the Tanglewood grounds a bit in the afternoon, trying to spot Williams.

I guess it's not counted among the symphonies anymore these days? With the latest re-numbering, the Unfinished and the Great have moved up and are now considered Nos. 7 and 8.

It's one of the few remaining gaps in my collection. Is the expansion that's supposedly currently in production just a rumour or confirmed? I'm thinking the latter, but it's been so long since it was teased, I might be misremembering.

One more question for those with Tanglewood experience: How strict is security? Will I be allowed to take my backpack in, or do I have to drop it off at the entrance? Will they object if it contains my DSLR camera? If during an ovation (not during the actual musical performance, I hate people who do that) I take out the camera and snap a picture or two of Williams, will I be rushed by security guards and waterboarded until I hand over the camera?

BSG consisted almost exclusively of characters you loved at one point and hated at another.

Truth be told, I only ordered Cinema Paradiso to round out the order. I love the film and like the score, but rarely listen to it. When playing the new disc, I realised that there's something to the sound of the recording/mix that I find really grating, or unnatural and oddly balanced. The new release is faithful to the older one in that regard, so it may have improved sound, but it's character of the sound that I've got a problem with. Nevertheless it's a very good score, of course, it's just that the old album was probably sufficient for me. (Different story altogether if you don't have that one, of course) I've had the Griegs before, especially Peer Gynt of course, and I prefer both my Karajan and Järvi recordings to these.

Probably not enough to fulfill all back orders. Funny enough, my own copy was shipped right after they announced that they won't have proper stock for a while yet (and Intrada still listed it as out of stock afterwards, so they didn't get enough copies to send out all orders and still have copies left at least).

Well, I grew up with a compilation tape that must have been a precursor to the current The OMD Singles. Electricity (which was the first song on it) is still one of the quintessential OMD songs for me. Sugar Tax came out just when I used to listen to the charts (before I discovered John Williams), so Sailing on the Seven Seas has always been a favourite as well. English Electric is on order together with the Mutter/Williams CD, so should arrive in September, and then my collection of OMD albums will only have two remaining gaps of 3 albums each both sides of Sugar Tax.

One of our choir favourites. It's been years since we had it in a concert programme, but it often comes up during choir parties (though the quality of those performances is a different matter).

Two weeks ago, taking advantage of Quartet's sale: Last week: Based on Jurassic Shark's recommendation in the other thread, I put two albums from this series on my list. I ordered the cheaper one (whatever happened to standard prices for Naxos CDs?). Turns out it was the "wrong" one. There's some fun stuff on it, but nothing that grabbed me like the the clip from the other album did. Today:

Death Proof is the one I haven't seen yet (aside from OUATIH). I don't think Basterds is dishonest about its trashiness. I think trashiness is only one aspect of some parts of the film, and those are honest about it. I certainly don't consider the opening sequence trashy, and I don't think the Waltz character is trashy (eccentric, yes, and deliberately goofy in a seriously menacing way). That's why I have less regard for Django, too: Both the film and the Waltz character feel too one-sidedly trashy to me. There's also a strong artistic aspect to the film, including the cinematography (the best in a Tarantino film) and the use of music (especially, unlike in most Tarantinos, "actual" (if not original) underscore for great dramatic effect), and a real tension to those scenes that go for it (Laurent is just as brilliant as Waltz in their cafe confrontation). What I perhaps admire most about it is something that very few films (that I've seen) achieve: It very convincingly includes sequences in another language that feel like they were actually made in their respective country. The German sequences definitely feel like authentic German cinema, and I get the same vibe from the French bits (but I'm not familiar enough with French cinema to be the best judge of that). Very few other films that pull this off come to mind; The Third Man is one of them.

And that's reason enough to recommend it!

Production plant troubles, see above. I ordered mine at Intrada in March, right now the Austrian customs office has it. I'll finally be able to hold it in my hands when I'm back from the US at the beginning of September.

I can live with that programme. Hopefully conducted by Williams himself... Hopefully conducted by Williams himself...