John Williams plays the Silent era ( featuring John Williams on piano)

[ShowUStheHOOK 8]

Has anyone seen this?

[Thor 7,494]

Yes, it's been talked about a couple of times. I believe there is even a thread about it (or two).

[ShowUStheHOOK 8]

oops. didn't know that....

[Thor 7,494]

No problem. It's a nice curiousity of a piece. Not often that you see Williams play the piano in later years. Plus....it seems to be written by himself and that other guy.

[indy4 155]

I wouldn't mind a high quality recoridng of this, although it isn't high on my list.

[Miguel Andrade 1,263]

I have a DVD made from the broadcast. Maybe the quality of the audio is slightly better.

The music is indeed by Williams. I believe he also performed it, along with Leonard Slatkin, in Washington in 2001.

[Thor 7,494]

He, he....yeah, Leonard Slatkin ("that other guy"). Didn't Slatkin co-write the piece? Or did he only co-perform?

[Miguel Andrade 1,263]

Co-performer. Williams is the composer of that one.

Actually, I don't ever recall seeing Slatkin ever billed as composer on anything. He's a pianist and conductor only, to the best of my knowledge.

[Thor 7,494]

This is still one of those "mysterious" pieces that we hardly ever talk about. Unfortunately, the only available recording is still the Youtube clip above, posted several years ago.

We do know that Williams composed it, but does it incorporate non-original material? Interestingly, there's a motif here that also occurs in the short film THE KATHERINE REED STORY which he wrote all the way back in the mid 60s -- I'm thinking it could potentially be a motif or theme NOT composed by Williams, but rather something famous from the short film days. KATHERINE has several such cameos in its score, including the BATMAN theme, which came out in 1966 -- which means the short film is not from 1965, as IMDB suggests, but post-1966.

Anyway, I'm digressing.

What were the circumstances of this piece and performance? I seem to remember something about a festival called "Soundtrack" back in 2003? Is that right?

[Miguel Andrade 1,263]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, this was first performed with Leonard Slatkin on a film music oriented festival he organized in Washington DC, back in 2001, and that was co-conducted by Williams.

Williams later played the piece with Boston Pops pianist Bob Winter, that being the performance from the video.

As for the theme coming from somewhere else, that might be the case... I did found some of the material in the Altman short film familiar, but never made the conection... will probably have to go back to it one of this days.

[Incanus 5,714]

It is a fun little piece completely in the movie hall piano idiom. Thank you for the info on its background.