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Which of these 2 recent Star Wars concert versions do you prefer


King Mark

Which of these 2 recent Star Wars concert versions do you prefer  

46 members have voted

  1. 1. Which of these 2 recent Star Wars concert versions do you prefer

    • Rey's Theme
    • Han Solo and the Princess 2018 Revision


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Rey.

Hearing the 2018 revised Han Solo & The Princess just makes me want to listen to Gerhardt's original arrangement of the theme.

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26 minutes ago, MrScratch said:

Rey.

Hearing the 2018 revised Han Solo & The Princess just makes me want to listen to Gerhardt's original arrangement of the theme.

 

Old Han & the Princess > Rey's theme > new Han & the Princess.

 

The old version (also my favourite one) was written 100% by JW, just like all the other concert arrangements!! Gerhardt only conducted the first recording!

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I have to say that I find the new Han Solo and the Princess to be very lovely, but I also prefer the old version.  Maybe a proper recording could change my mind.

 

Rey's Theme is probably my favorite piece Williams has written since WAR HORSE and even the sheer repetition in VII and VIII hasn't killed that theme for me - yet.

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3 hours ago, Score said:

 

The old version (also my favourite one) was written 100% by JW, just like all the other concert arrangements!! Gerhardt only conducted the first recording!

Correct.  However, there is mention from those days that Herbert Spencer put together some of the concert arrangements from Williams' score material, though William, of course, had the final say. 

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what the hell are you talking about. There's never ever been any mention anywhere Herbert Spencer composed or "put together" any of JW's concert versions

 

Don't start a new source of confusion

 

Spencer was an orchestrator, and probably as useless as the current ones, since Williams music can be recorded to sound more or less the same just from Williams sketches. .At best he had a subtle effect on the final sound of the recordings

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Someone on this site years back, and I am way to lazy to go back and check who and when, mentioned Adventures on Earth concert version was arranged by Spencer, as well as other pieces from the time.  Perhaps its was completely wrong information.  Maybe another longtime member remembers such things. 

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9 hours ago, Tom said:

there is mention from those days that Herbert Spencer put together some of the concert arrangements from Williams' score material, though William, of course, had the final say. 

Interesting!

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Yeah, it may not be true.  I now remember more exactly. A JWfaner back in the day claimed it was Spencer who arranged to have the grand statement of the flying theme from the brass-hit build-up to later in the piece.  Who knows.  If that was the case, it may have been a suggestion Williams acted on while putting together the piece himself. 

 

To quote some Stormtroopers in response to my own posts, "Move along, move along."

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21 hours ago, King Mark said:

what the hell are you talking about. There's never ever been any mention anywhere Herbert Spencer composed or "put together" any of JW's concert versions

 

Don't start a new source of confusion

 

Spencer was an orchestrator, and probably as useless as the current ones, since Williams music can be recorded to sound more or less the same just from Williams sketches. .At best he had a subtle effect on the final sound of the recordings

 

"Useless"? That's not very fair at all. Williams' sketches usually contain all the information needed to determine how the music will sound, but the orchestrators (or the music preparation team nowadays) still play an important role in getting the music ready for actually being recorded in a timely fashion. It's like...the people who make pencils and blank manuscript paper and pianos don't really have any influence on how his music sounds, but they're certainty not useless.

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2 hours ago, Datameister said:

 

"Useless"? That's not very fair at all. Williams' sketches usually contain all the information needed to determine how the music will sound, but the orchestrators (or the music preparation team nowadays) still play an important role in getting the music ready for actually being recorded in a timely fashion. It's like...the people who make pencils and blank manuscript paper and pianos don't really have any influence on how his music sounds, but they're certainty not useless.

 

Exactly and, to be completely fair, orchestrators should take some decisions sometimes, even with JW. It is possible for two different orchestrators to interpret some details of the sketches in slightly different ways, although they would sound almost identical when played by the orchestra.

 

Anyway, the issue that triggered these reactions was the old version of Han Solo and the Princess, which is for sure "composed by John Williams, orchestrated by Herbert Spencer". Gerhardt had no involvement in the creation of the piece (that legend pops out here every now and then). Then, nobody could know for sure how much was done by Spencer in this particular case, unless we could see JW's sketches. We also cannot know for sure if JW treats all his concert arrangements exactly like his film cues, or if in (some of) those cases he leaves some more relevant creative tasks to the orchestrators. I have no idea about the "Adventures on Earth" situation mentioned by @Tom , it's the first time I hear this... who knows. But we are going out of the main topic of this thread! 

 

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Haven't heard new HSatP as I'm waiting for an official recording, so I chose Rey's Theme (which is lovely regardless).

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I think the fact that John Williams would single out Han Solo and the Princess, and revisit it in a way distinct from how he’s reworking all the themes on the upcoming ASM Violin album just shows how much he treasures the theme. 

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