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Favorite Lincoln Melody [POLL]


Disco Stu

Favorite Lincoln Melody [POLL]  

57 members have voted

  1. 1. Favorite Lincoln Melody

    • With Malice Toward None
    • The American Process
    • The People's House
    • Freedom's Call
    • Elegy
      0
    • Remembrance
    • Getting Out the Vote


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I often decry polls on the forum, and there have been quite a few today, but I'm genuinely curious about others' thoughts on this.

 

While I realize the Americana/Coplandesque style is not to everyone's taste, Lincoln is one of my personal favorite Williams OSTs, not least because of its deeply emotional, beautiful, spare melodies.  I also love the very natural sounding recording of the CSO.

 

Many thanks to @Incanus' analysis as a quick reference for theme names and timestamps.

 

I realize I might be skewing the results somewhat with my selection of settings for each theme, especially for those not familiar enough with the score to have other settings in mind.  I tried to pick 2 for each to give an idea of different ways Williams uses them.

 

 

With Malice Toward None 

(1:19 - 1:49) [deep brass/woodwinds]

(7:40 - 8:24) [solo trumpet w/ piano counterpoint]

 

 

The American Process

(8:25 - 9:13) [solo piano]

(0:00 - 0:50) [woodwinds]

 

 

The People's House

(3:14 - 4:48) [woodwinds to strings, with climactic brass crescendos]

(3:10 - end) [solo trumpet]

 

 

Freedom's Call

(3:19 - 5:29) [strings and brass, mostly.  some woodwind textures adding color]

(0:25 - 1:09) [solo piano to deep brass]

 

 

Elegy

(3:06 - end)

 

 

Remembrance (though I often refer to it as The Blue and Grey due to the track title where it first appears)

(9:29 - end) [solo piano]

 

 

Getting Out the Vote (for giggles :P)

central melody introduced at 0:26

 

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It's so achingly bittersweet on solo piano.

 

I so want Williams to compose a heartbreaking, full-on Adagio-esque arrangement for strings crying out in pain, which will never happen.  Fitting, I suppose.

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2 minutes ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

I think I truly prefer With Malice Towards None, but as a coda to the credits suite and score as a whole that passage is too haunting to ignore. 

 

I honestly can't decide which is my favorite, but I could easily be convinced to pick Remembrance.  It expresses something fundamental about the human experience of grief/loss that can never be expressed with words.

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10 minutes ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

I think I truly prefer With Malice Towards None, but as a coda to the credits suite and score as a whole that passage is too haunting to ignore. 

Agreed, though it's not complete without the warm piano reprise of With Malice Towards None afterwards.  

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I have such fond memories of listening to this OST the entire month of December 2012, it always makes me think of Christmas!  A season when I'm always prone to listen to music of a poignant/bittersweet tone.

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There are so many great themes in that score. It's actually insane how many he wrote for that movie. 

 

My pick would be The American Process. It is the piece that immediately comes to mind when I think of this score. It also the theme that mostly reminds me of 19th century American music.  

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Just now, Damien F said:

I know Getting Out The Vote was added for giggles, but its concert version is a really fun piece. Shame it wasn't included in the third Williams / Spielberg collection CD.

 

I agree wholeheartedly!

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5 hours ago, king mark said:

People house BY FAR

Classic Williams theme

 

Yep!!

 

I remember it was one of the first Williams themes I ever fell in love with. 

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I went with With Malice Towards None.  I do really love the concert version of Getting out the Vote.

 

I also really like Remembrance, but the way the melody closes reminds me so much of Rosewood that it takes me out of the moment.  

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All the themes in the score are beautiful pieces of Americana but I have to go With Malice Toward None.

 

And now I have to listen to this score (yet) again. Thanks Disco Stu! ;) 

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With Malice Toward None, for me.

 

The themes are all inspired and great, but this one's arguably the most inspired and greatest.

 

Reminds me somehow of Angela's Prayers theme from Angela's Ashes. 

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I really love what I'll call the "19th century cadences" of this score.  Can anyone recommend another score (from any decade) that has a similarly 19th century folk sense of counterpoint and harmony?  Being only an extreme novice in music theory, I'm not sure how to communicate what I mean, but I don't just mean other Coplandesque Americana scores, but I'll take recommendations for those as well :) 

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The names in the poll seem arbitrary to me. How did you com up with them?

 

What you call With Malice Toward None is a great theme. It is best expressed as an aching violin solo in Track 12. It is as beautiful a solo as the violin solo in Jewish Town in Schindler's List.

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On 11/14/2017 at 10:11 AM, Disco Stu said:

IMany thanks to @Incanus' analysis as a quick reference for theme names and timestamps

 

But except for "Remembrance" they're also all track titles from the OST that heavily feature the themes.

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Thanks to @Disco Stu and this thread, I've listened to the Lincoln OST thrice this week.  It may be a boring answer, but I think my favorite theme is the People's House one.  But dang, I can barely even separate the themes when trying to think of my "favorite", I kinda just like all the themes equally.  It's one of the thematically richest scores he's ever done!

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Yes, very much so!  You can tell he put a lot of effort into this and The Book Thief really.  Actually all the ones adapted from books he read: HPSS and Memoirs too

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18 minutes ago, Jay said:

Thanks to @Disco Stu and this thread, I've listened to the Lincoln OST thrice this week.  It may be a boring answer, but I think my favorite theme is the People's House one.  But dang, I can barely even separate the themes when trying to think of my "favorite", I kinda just like all the themes equally.  It's one of the thematically richest scores he's ever done!

 

Yeah, I remember back when I first was introduced to the score (several years ago) with the "Peterson House and Finale" track, I felt like everything flowed so beautifully together, with no awkward transitions between material. It just felt like one long concert piece. I was rather amazed to find out a couple years later, when I became a bigger JW fan, that the cue was really a medley of a bunch of different themes! Sometimes medleys can sound a little "forced" (TFA and BFG end credits do this IMO, although I still love them). Lincoln's, like quite a few other JW scores, did not. 

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Seeing this thread pop up, decided to revisit the score.

 

I don't think it's unreasonable to say this is his best score since Munich/Memoirs. And its one of the few scores that so absolutely embodies Williams meticulous craft. Not a single note is wasted here.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Toss-up for me between The People's House and The American Process. I'll vote for the latter because that was the one that stuck out to me the first time I saw the film, although I'd say I love them about equally now.

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  • 2 years later...

Hey!  I just discovered this video uploaded last month by the National Symphony Orchestra.

 

It includes a FULL live performance of the three part suite from Lincoln.  On top of that it also includes the suite from JFK, Copland's Lincoln Portrait, and Rhapsody in Blue.

 

I have this timestamped to start with the Lincoln suite:

 

 

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And yes a perfect opportunity to bump this, probably my favorite thread I created ;) 

 

A chance for original participants to revisit their choices and newer members to vote for the first time.

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Remembrance or The Blue and the Grey is one of my all-time favourite Williams pieces. It's a shame it wasn't used or developed any further as it's a somber, reflective piece that I think does more for me than With Malice Toward None.

 

@Disco Stu As I remember you're the champion of this film and score, I have to thank you for letting me have another chance to reevaluate this score and purchase it a few years ago.

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I'm still in love that "American Process" b section that I posted as my favorite 3 years ago

 

(2:42 - 3:09)

 

I also happen to be watching the movie again tonight (it's major comfort food for me).  I'm on that great scene where Lincoln entertains the war room during the shelling of Wilmington with a story of Ethan Allen. 

 

"Appropriate? George Washington's portrait in a water closet??"

"Yes," said Mr. Allen, "where it'll do good service..

The whole world knows nothing will make an Englishman shit quicker than the sight of George Washington."

:lol:

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41 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Hey!  I just discovered this video uploaded last month by the National Symphony Orchestra.

 

It includes a FULL live performance of the three part suite from Lincoln.  On top of that it also includes the suite from JFK, Copland's Lincoln Portrait, and Rhapsody in Blue.

 

I have this timestamped to start with the Lincoln suite:

 

 

 

Wow, awesome! This 3 movement suite should have been in Spielberg Williams III instead of what they went with 

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4 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Wow, awesome! This 3 movement suite should have been in Spielberg Williams III instead of what they went with 

 

I love Thomas Hooten's performance on "With Malice Toward None" too much to cut that.  My current thinking is that the second strings-led version should have been cut and instead sub in "The Long Road to Justice" also with Hooten on solo trumpet.

 

But of course I'd have taken the 3 movement suite too! 

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1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

My current thinking is that the second strings-led version should have been cut and instead sub in "The Long Road to Justice" also with Hooten on solo trumpet.

 

Oh wow... Yes please! 

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