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karelm

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karelm last won the day on December 31 2022

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  1. Yes, along with Elgar's Cello Concerto one of the best of the genre. Also very satisfying to perform. I played in the orchestra on this piece in a concert and was struck how well it feels and how exciting the ending bars were. I've noticed that with all Dvorak I've performed, it's very well executed even if you don't play much, each note has purpose. In contrast, Robert Schumann, I played throughout it but felt much of that served no purpose and wasn't exactly clear what I was needed for.
  2. I think it's very interesting that he has books on Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Brahms (multiple books), two copies of Britten's War Requiem, multiple books about Cole Porter, even Stockhausen, a looming head of Copland, etc. This really does reflect on his sound world, but I don't see Vaughan Williams.
  3. The originals are at JAKMS but the resulting full scores are what's in the leather-bound copies. The hand sketches are like first draft, not the cleaned up, revised full scores though with JW, there might not be much difference except one is cleaned up, legible, and the other might have lots of short hand making it hard to follow. A simple example, maybe an instrument switches which system it's on from bar to bar. The orchestrator would clearly understand that shorthand, but it would make the full score difficult to read. Think of it as a handwritten notepad of a story with lines scratched out versus the edited, typeset resulting copy. This is a picture of his library with the leather scores. They are full scores. I can make out Empire of the Sun, Jaws, JFK and a few other gems. John Williams, Hollywood’s Maestro, Looks Beyond the Movies - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
  4. It had everything I thought to check. With that said, I didn't think to check some of those! I did see the soundtrack and also arranged cues meant for the soundtrack album but might not be in the film. I do recall a cantina band or two but those weren't my main focus. I was working on the music of official Star Wars projects so got permission to study the originals. It's crazy to think I was sitting alone with the Herb Spencer original pencil scores and could literally have changed it if I felt like it. Exactly how I felt! I actually briefly considered running out as fast as I could with those! Luckily, I didn't act on that urge.
  5. My pictures while examining those sheets. Was such a thrill to hold the original, hand written full scores! Three piles, A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
  6. It's common knowledge that Goldsmith was a chromogen not unlike Bernard Herrmann. Marco Beltrami said that Goldsmith had a chip on his shoulder that he never found his Spielberg or Lucas which I thought was a dig at JW. This sort of stuff isn't really that big a deal because it's so common. We tend to compare ourselves to our peers rather than to ourselves and at the top levels like these two were, it can be fiercely competitive but doesn't mean that much. It's sort of just an emotional response but if given a moment to think more clearly on it, I think Goldsmith would refine his criticism to more of a backhanded compliment. When JG died, his daughter published online about 50 pages of a bio she was writing about her dad. I think the book was either never completed or the project fell through, but I read it and she quoted JG commenting on many of his contemporaries. Again, it wasn't personal, just chromogeny comments when comparing himself to others feeling he didn't get an award someone else did for something he felt was inferior, type of thing. So what. Saying it doesn't make it true and isn't insightful to what he even really means.
  7. I've attended some of these and recall some real gems. LA Phil is very, very supportive of young, unproven composers. Was it the 100th anniversary year included 100 commissions, it was a few years ago so can't remember what the celebration was. It's not unusual for a program with Dvorak to be paired with a world premiere and I don't think I've heard a failure. Some have been outstanding and almost always by composers I've not encountered before, and I am an adventurous listener.
  8. Oh, come on. You think the biopic of the first conscientious objector who refused to fire a weapon and would receive a Medal of Honor when there was no such thing after saving 72 men in the battle of Okinawa isn't a worthwhile story? It's a very well told story of a side of war never heard. Those who refuse to bear arms but are still willing to die for their cause.
  9. What do you know of Johnny's grandfather? I understand he was a composer too.
  10. To me, he'll always first be known as Towner Nagle.
  11. It's really fascinating and I bet a book could be written about this topic. First, we got a great score. What could Horner have created that we didn't imagine if he had six more weeks or Abbey Road had better facilities? What he's saying isn't wrong, Abbey Road knew it and did fix it, they talk about that in a spitfire walkthrough of the studio how during the late 1980's they made major upgrades. Would it have mattered? I believe this pressure resulted in the change in his style from his earlier scores and his mid/later scores. Everything he says is spot on except what's complicated is and yet he managed to deliver. Maybe he always feels this way. You gave me six months but if I had eight more months what could I have delivered? By the time of Troy (2004), he farmed out a lot of the work because he had to deliver a 2+ hour epic score in three weeks. What could he have done with that if he had 8 more weeks? If he had those 8 more weeks, what if he had 12 more weeks? To what composer does this not apply? It's probably diminishing returns.
  12. They are comparable. I have Krull and it's great.
  13. Ok, this one is hard to explain. I deeply loved this sequence from Heat. I remember seeing it in a theater vividly when you're completely engrossed in the film. The whole time, Deniro is pulled from a life of crime and leaving it behind. In this scene, very late in the film, he finally meets someone who he connects with personally and is pulling him away from crime. They are leaving crime for a happier life. You see the dilemma in his mind. He realizes who he is. He is a criminal. I just love this scene and how it was scored by Elliot Goldenthal. One of the best crime dramas I've ever seen. What I think makes this film so good (aside from the score) is that Pacino, who has the same obsessive desires, is just as broken, but as a broken hero, willing to sacrifice his life, his love, his family, everything, for his obsession. These two desperately lonely characters only truly understand each other...their enemy. Then this scene without a word. The music beautifully swells to Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo obsession level.
  14. If this thread was called "What Television series are you watching?", I am really enjoying "The Big Bang Theory". I tend to be very late to the party when it comes to pop culture and what everyone else is watching. So I just now started watching TBBT and find it very funny! Highly recommended.
  15. I really enjoyed 2014's The Equalizer. Great bad ass kicking some Russian mafia ass. Made me wonder, how does one become a master assassin? Are there masterclasses in assassinry? How do you find gigs and ascend to master level in that career?
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