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Some fact snippets I gathered from people who talked to people (in the orchestra etc.): - The Philharmoniker were big fans of Williams as a conductor and specifically pointed out his sensible and no-nonsense style as opposed to exaggerated theatrics by many of their regular famous big name conductors. They also supposedly said that such an enormous audience reaction and general atmosphere is unprecedented, even considering the New Year's Concerts. - Originally, three encores (i.e. a "usual" number) were planned: The Duel, Remembrances, and Raiders' March. It was the Philharmoniker who had their go between ask Williams if they couldn't do the Imperial March as well. When he heard the request, Williams was worried that it would be too hard on the horns after such a long and difficult concert - until they told him that it was in fact the special wish of the horn section. My own guess is that ASM requested to also add Nice to Be Around, based on her often citing it as one of her favourites in interviews. - I spotted Austrian ex-president Heinz Fischer and his wife, as well as ex-chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, at the Saturday concert. Fischer left before the final encore (Imperial March). - The Imperial March was a fitting encore, give that Williams was staying at the Hotel Imperial (right next to the Musikverein).

WARNING: Essay inbound. It's interesting, the more that I think about it all; I didn't even attend the concerts and yet I have been practically glued to my screen, constantly refreshing this thread to see updates/photos/videos/reviews. These concerts mean a lot more (imo) for the legacy of John Williams (as well as the acceptance of film music) than any other event I can really think of in recent history. The Vienna Philharmonic has a bit of a reputation of being thought of as perhaps the most elitist/snobbiest orchestra (no offense to Austrian forum users!), the pinnacle of "proper" classical music-making—so to see John Williams ascend this seemingly insurmountable feat of getting this orchestra to play two concerts of nothing but his film music, and having the musicians standing there clapping wildly for him with smiles on their faces... It's a pretty breathtaking accomplishment. It feels like the world is different today than it was two days ago. I've always thought that Williams' music deserves to be held in the same high regard as many of the Romantic masters, and as a classical music fan (and musician) I've longed to see some of his film music pieces start to seep into the concert hall and gradually become mainstays of the repertoire. These concerts are a titanic step in the right direction. It feels in a way that with these concerts, Williams has finally conquered the classical world—after all, if your music is "good enough" for the VPO to play it, then who else could possibly ever deem it unworthy?! The critics? Who cares about them. Audiences pay (and pay handsomely) to see Williams' compositions, and orchestras are starting to figure that out with the advent of live-to-picture concerts. These Vienna concerts show that even in the heart of the classical music world—in the "City of Music", with all its historicity and traditions and its famous-composer graves—that John Williams sells. And I'd wager that even if Williams himself wasn't conducting (he won't be around forever), the concerts would have still made a respectable sum and sold well. It is always so ironic to me that the people crying from the rooftops that "Classical music is dying, what ever are we going to do?!" are the same ones who want to incessantly program postmodernist trash as their only idea of "new music"—and yet it's been shown time and time again that film music (at least great film music, like JW's), sells, and is a great way to introduce people to the orchestra and to classical music. There is a clear antidote to the prospect of classical music "dying"—program stuff that people actually want to hear! Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky's ballet works were not always accepted in the concert hall, and yet nowadays you can't go a season without seeing a "Nutcracker" or a "Rite of Spring" or "Firebird Suite". History repeats itself; what we are facing today in regards to film music is little more the same aversion to change, all over again. The irony being that this sort of concert hall gatekeeping is being done nowadays by the very people who like to claim how "new" and inventive their music is, when in reality it's the same tired mix of atonal crowd-killers we've been hearing for decades now. Opera and ballet were once "popular" art forms, and their staples eventually made their way onto the concert hall stage in the form of overtures and suites, respectively. So too will (I hope) film music like JW's. One day I hope it is commonplace to see an orchestra concert that has (for example) the STAR WARS "Main Title" as its "overture", and then a concerto followed by a symphony after intermission. If orchestras truly want to bring people into classical music, then give them a taste of something familiar/popular, and maybe they'll stick around for the classics. Rather than scare them out of the building by intermission, never to come back, because their idea of "classical music" is now either super-light cliche classical, or downright atonality, with no middle ground. Annnyways, these concerts mean a lot to me and I think, hopefully, a lot in regards to the overall acceptance of Williams' music in the hall. Last year's double DG releases (Dudamel's all-JW live concert program with the LA Phil, and then the violin arrangements album with ASM) certainly helped, as well; they are probably the "gold standard" classical music label, so for them to be willing to put out multiple albums of his music in a year is not a bad sign at all. And hopefully 2020 will see a DG release of this Vienna program. And back on the concert hall front, Stephane Deneve (a good friend of JW's) is the new Music Director of St. Louis, and he just did a regular subscription program which featured "Hedwig's Theme" alongside other classical staples, a program which he is taking to Philly in the coming months if I recall correctly! He's got the right idea; hopefully others will be moved/relieved at the sight of the VPO applauding and respecting Williams, and will start to follow suit in their programming. But things are looking up, and I couldn't be happier. I hope I'm not just going crazy/I hope some others here share my views on this(?).

The one thing that was the biggest revelation to me personally, and after 25+ years of listening to his music elevated my esteem of Williams as a composer and conductor even further: Having lived in Vienna my whole life, I've heard the Philharmoniker and other orchestras play at the Musikverein numerous times. Occasionally on parterre seats (mostly when I got cheap tickets for dress rehearsals), more often from the balcony. I've always had the impression that 1) the Golden Hall can indeed sound great if played right, but can also be overly reverb-y and intransparent when played too loud, or without the right balance and 2) that the balcony seats seemed to suffer from that problem much more than the parterre seats. I've heard big name conductors with big name orchestras play massive symphonies by master composers like Mahler, Strauss, and Bruckner and regret only having a balcony seat because I could barely hear many of the details in these works I knew so well from various recordings - including the Philharmoniker, who've been at home in that hall for 150 years. The Williams concerts marked the first time that I heard the same concert on two successive days, once from a parterre seat and once from the balcony. And the balcony sound was fantastic - slightly more reverb than below, but never at the expense of clarity. I didn't feel I missed a single detail, and in fact heard a few new ones I'd never been aware of. I could swear I could actually hear the piano in the Imperial March. In short, I've rarely heard such a powerful and yet transparent performance at the Musikverein - a testament to Williams as a conductor and an orchestrator, and with music that was originally written for a single studio recording.

Both CD and DVD release confirmed!

Don't believe everything you read on the internet folks. What this guy says here is not true at all. John Williams is still in Vienna right now.

One funny detail from the Sunday concert. After all these encores, Johnny made his usual go-to-sleep-gesture!! This concert started 11 a.m.😜😜😜

I'm glad I didn't waste money on attending the concert then!

I'm still in shock. Recovering from what feels like a dream (not even listening to any music still), but what I can say is that a big thing about this concert was hearing what one of the best orchestras is able to do under John’s own guidance. Playing without amplification, with music going from players straight to you, gives it the maximum range of dynamics, emotional opportunities and the immense delivery of power. John’s music is incredibly dynamic, so an orchestra like Vienna Philharmonic emphasises this, under his direction, to deliver nuances ranging from gentlest tones to projection of raw power of percussion and brass that can blow you away and push you back in your seat. I’ve never heard anything like this in my life and there are no words to describe it, really. My idea of music, orchestras and emotional power live music can have, has been completely changed. And as a composer, even more so. Unreal.

Also: In both concerts, Williams said more or less the same things. He added a little anecdotal detail here, and left one out there (and apparently forgot to introduce Tintin today - he gave his comments on it afterwards, prompted by ASM), and he was very eloquent on both days - but he used different words. He clearly prepares *what* he's going to say, but he just comes up with the appropriate words on the spot. (Oh, and he also said Luke and Leia was from the second film... )

What can I say after today ? This was a moment that will stay with me till the end of my life. First and probably only time seeing John Williams conduct his own music. I won't deny I teared up a bit at some points. For example when Anne-Sophie Mutter started playing Hedwig's Theme, or during E.T.'s final, or during Cinderella Liberty. And I don't think I'm projecting if I say I felt emotion amongst the public and the orchestra as well. The music itself was magnificent. The brass in Jurassic Park ! Anne-Sophie Mutter virtuoso playing ! It was a blast hearing so many great pieces live for the first time, all those Among the Stars arrangements, plus The Rebellion Is Reborn, War Horse, Shark Cage Fugue... And the usual suspects didn't disappoint obviously, with special mention to Raiders March and Imperial March, which I don't think I have ever heard sound better, and were a terrific way to close the concert.

I agree with what you're saying, but I would be careful about generally bashing postmodernist/atonal music in retaliation. It can be quite a rewarding experience once you get used to the genre. Even John Williams has written many pieces in that style. His bassoon concerto The Five Sacred Trees is one of my favourite works of his!

Please release a CD please release a CD please release a CD.

I'm sure it will also be a blu-ray, which is a standard medium for Deutsche Grammophon concert releases. They recorded it with nine UHD cameras.

This weekend was quite an experience! Hard to put into words. On Saturday I had a stalls seat, which was great to watch Williams work his magic (I loved how he often didn't do that much and let the musicians play, but added little gestures here and there to shape a phrase or an accent) and see the energy with which the musicians played. On Sunday I was in the standing area, which meant I couldn't see much, but this had the upside of being much more able to just lean back and take in the sound of the music (which was great even way back there under the balcony) without getting fixated on all the little details catching my eye the day before (watching how certain things are played, how the players react to the conducting, etc - which is its own kind of fun, but woods and trees and all...). And the sound really was magnificent! The pieces that moved me most were Hook (the magic of the beginning of the concert, and realizing this was actually happening), Close Encounters (just this sublime journey from chaos to triumphant harmony), Sabrina (how so many people can produce so intimate a sound, especially in the melancholic middle section), and War Horse (that aforementioned brass chorale!). And I was really happy they included the Duel from Tintin, which is just great fun with all it's twists and turns, especially with Mutter coordinating the wild bouncing bows passages with the violin section! I greatly enjoyed meeting a lot of fellow film music friends after the concerts, even if only briefly, and sharing this moment of history (which it surely is)

Don't talk to me about tears... ...but I agree - the piece (I almost wrote movement, hehe) from War Horse was one of the highlights in the "second concert on Saturday", as I have been calling the two halves personally since that interval. I especially enjoyed the string-based pieces (and the percussion, and brass, oh well) - they really sounded rich and lush, not only in War Horse but also Marian's, erm, Marion's theme, for example... ...in the "first concert on Saturday", for some odd reason, Sabrina did touch me in a special way (and yes, as somebody else already wrote, it might be considered better than the original version). Hook was a perfect introduction and a flight into this parallel universe (now I will never witness Olympic Fanfare and Theme, which got replaced in London back in 1996 as well - both times something more interesting took its place though), all the pieces (19, people, 19!!!) had their merits (an understatement!) - and on Saturday it was amazing how the orchestra got better and better, and the mood and excitement of the audience as well. I will stop now before I go through the whole experience, which happened only yesterday, again. oO One more thing though: I especially enjoyed watching Williams conduct so energetically and see all these emotions playing out on his face; and even his speeches were more extensive, more insightful, and wittier than usual. (maybe that's just me) This (and a couple of other wonderful things) made everything even more impressive. Except for that small emotional jolt for a couple of beats during E.T. (after being enthralled by it before and after; I didn't mind the other very few small issues in this loong concert in all the excitement/excellence/joy of the players at all) everything, and I mean everything (also the circumstances, our journey, stay near the Riesenrad, our meet-up after the concert, etc.), was bliss for me/us. *sigh* Martin (who is now going to scribble Marian's insights into the programme as well...)

He did indeed. We watched some of it on the hall TV screens

I heard that from an austrian close to Musikverein management. I don't think Mutter charged them that, though. It's not the Wembley stadium so they couldn't recoup 200k by two gigs with a hall small like that. Though i will say one thing that seems to me more important than all the (expected) adulation of JW's music: it's where your stuff is performed that matters. I had Williams at the Barbican (and Desplat), many others (among them JNH, Morricone and Zimmer) played in awful commercial venues that simply sounded like shit. They were amplified by stadion speakers and the orchestra and percussion was often mixed abominably. It's a testament to these classical locations (that are a dying breed) that this concert sounded as good as it did.

I predicted this 10 year ago...

I don't think Williams needs a "wake-up call." He knows he would sell out any venue worldwide. He is almost 88. It is not easy for him to travel abroad.

For some reason I thought about the space battle today. SW and RotJ spend just enough time setting up the precise plans ahead of time, and you know the goals and can follow it first time even when things temporarily go wrong (shield's up, gotta bide time - got caught, gotta have a ground battle to get another chance to deactivate the shield). I've seen TROS once, and... what happened above Exogol? The Resistance just went because we gotta fight. The FO was already there unified with the Sith fighters and fleet, into the Final Order, in... that 18 hour time limit they idiotically gave again in the opening? Enemy fleet ridiculously big, no real tension. Finn and co ride horses on a Star Destroyer, until they don't. I don't know if I'd even remember it if it wasn't in the trailer. They go for the one antenna which controls all the gajillion ships until it doesn't because now another one does. Lando arrives out of nowhere with another ridiculous fleet out of nowhere, no impact, meh, we only see 10 shots of the whole thing anyway. Palps überlightnings everything and they all start going down until he doesn't and they don't. At some point Finn (and BB maybe?) open some hatch? Richard E Grant gets blown out the window and the battle is won and they all go home. I have no fucking clue what happened.

I just got goosebumps again, these vienna horns sound amazing!!!

Yes, I talked with the brilliant solo horn mr. Janezic after the Saturday concert and he said it was her wish that they should play Imperial march as an encore., 😜😜😜💪💪💪

I'm sure Bill takes care of that in his absence.

Wörk wörk wörk gölf wörk

These reviews are all fantastic to hear. I leave Vienna with a mixed and heavy feeling as I received some bad family news immediately before the concerts which compromised my ability to truly relax. I’m hoping for that to fade as my memory of the concerts becomes more vivid! I really loved the forum meet up!

Apparently, Austrian ex-president Heinz Fischer was spotted by (by some of "our" people, not by the ushers) recording part of Saturday's concert on his phone.

I guess the after-party of the first concert took its toll!

I was on the right hand side, front row on the balcony. I've seen Williams twice before (both Hollywood Bowl 2014/16 I think), but neither of those even remotely compared to yesterday. The intimacy of the venue, the sense of complete harmony of the audience to JW and of course the complete and utter respect of the musicians for someone whom even a decade or so ago they may have regarded with some disdain. The concert met and exceeded my expectations really beyond what I had hoped for - even the presence of ASM and the numerous revised arrangements seemed somehow befitting of the venue and atmosphere. I felt as if the hall, as grand as it is, did suffer from some excess reverb (somebody mentioned earlier that this is more pronounced in the higher balcony seats as opposed to the stalls), however it's such a minor complaint and didn't in any way spoil the occasion nor mar the tremendous musicianship on display. One can only hope that this is a wake-up call for Williams to realise how appreciated he is in Europe - very strange not to see the 2018 LSO concert rescheduled but perhaps this makes that more likely?

He’s not on a conference call with the Royal Albert Hall and LSO is he by any chance Jay?! 😂

.

It's a very simple, but ultimately damaging to the industry, process: Zimmer hires minions to do most of the work on movies he doesn't really care about, but will do anyway to receive a paycheck and enlarge his IMDB profile. Working with Zimmer, the minions unlearn everything they did on their music colleges, while learning how to score a movie with the ~Zimmer sound~. Hollywood producers attempting to appeal to the lowest possible denominator, want that Zimmer sound on their movies. With Zimmer himself unavailable, he points the producers towards his minions: "Yeah, I've mentored this Jablonsky guy, he can do a The Dark Knight inspired score for your action movie". With his proxies, the Zimmer sound infects almost all Hollywood like a virus, making almost all scores (including those for TV and games) sounding like generic offshots of Zimmer's own work. Of course, when a producer wants something more orchestral and traditional, they can always rely on Giacchino, lol.

Yeah, I never experienced something like this in a concert before. And by some accounts it was even more emotional on saturday! It was Anne-Sophie Mutter's violin that got to me the most, when she played the melodies in their most simple and straight version, without the ornamentations that are technically absolutely thrilling but ultimately distracting. It certainly seems to me that there are more and more film music concerts around. I too hope it will keep going and eventually get integrated to the larger classical repertory. Though apart from Williams, I wonder what other names will stick? Morricone, Horner, Desplat? Does Jerry Goldsmith's music ever get played nowadays? That's sad to hear. I hope your family is OK and that in time you only keep the good memories indeed.

He's fleeing from the Austrian critics. And he forgot to feed his cat, Geörge Lücas.

He also mentioned that he wrote a love theme for the original Star Wars. So from Williams himself: Across the Stars wasn't the first one after all!

Brilliant find, thanks for finding and sharing this! I added the info into the google doc https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GYa2ZnhT5zKiPuNJ7Gf-X_yzRkv7xGn-73cN_RSsWDw/

Well, yes, but I still want an album release. 😛 They usually release both CD & Blu-Ray for their New Year's Concerts and others, so there's precedent/hope.

The atmosphere certainly felt special and electric to me. I'd imagine they only get this kind of reaction when touring in Asia - if at all. Nothing against regular Viennese concert life - but this must've been quite exhilarating for the players. Awesome thing to see! 😃 It's also pretty great that these incredibly busy musicians go and ask for an extra encore because they like the piece so much. Btw, I thought I saw someone looking like Schüssel in the Direktionsloge - was that him? (not that it matters) I teared up a little when I saw that Imperial March recording today - cannot wait for the Blu-ray release!

Update - Our next set of cues is posted! Check out "Diggorys and Portkeys" and "The Quidditch World Cup." You can also subscribe to weekly emails for the new cues. We'd love to discuss and hear what you all think - it was a lot of fun to pull from more nostalgic, whimsical JW material. Some new themes are introduced too! Side note, this discussion is awesome, and reading books along with corresponding film scores is the way to go.

That's probably the real reason she was there.

Cookies?

Indeed. This is a huge moment from a historical perspective. We devotees have considered John one of the greats for some time, but what we are seeing now is the beginning of the wider classical community recognizing this. This is the start of John taking his place in the inner sanctum of the Parthenon. Indeed, great film music sells. Works like John's are both technically proficient and have popular appeal, unlike the the intellectual exercises that are more typical nowadays, and thus are more in line with the essence of what classical music began life as. But John does not merely retread Romantic paths. What is amazing about his music is how it combines traditional senses of melody and applicability with dramatic purpose, and modern technical complexity. John's music may have ran counter to the modern and postmodern academic spirits, but his music is true Postmodernism. What is more, as people are drawn into to hear his music, their ears cannot help but be opened to more "difficult" recent music, and the quality of contemporary music that will be played, performed, and written, atonal or otherwise, will be higher now that the audience will be larger. He's a movie star now too, you know!

Lol, that's not really a fair comparison. "The Rite of Spring" was a revolutionary work; its premiere was a game-changer. There's also objectively a lot more going on in that piece. Pieces like the above link have been around for decades; they are nothing new and orchestras are losing audiences because of them. People show up for the first time, hear this, and either leave before they get to the "meat-and-potatoes" of the program, or they stick around but decide against coming back because they don't want to have to listen to stuff like the above. Why not program stuff that ordinary people will want to hear, if you want them to stick around and keep coming? These days in New York (and most places I'd imagine), the vast majority of Philharmonic concerts open with/feature a "new music" work that sounds like merely some variation of the above. (Though the above is one of the worst I've heard.) Why? The phrase "new music" shouldn't be practically synonymous with atonality, and yet we're in a state where it is. People shouldn't hear "new music" and have pieces like the above come to mind; it should be a neutral term that just refers to works that are newly written—including tonal, Romantic-style works, or even Classical-style if someone saw fit to compose in that way. My hope is that things like the Vienna concerts will start to change what is accepted in the concert hall; there is zero reason that tonal new music (like film music) should not have a place in the concert hall. Your average public audience member would enjoy hearing John Williams a heck of a lot more than stuff like in my above link. Back to the case of Stravinsky, though. Have you heard his earlier works, pre-"Rite"? He could absolutely compose great tonal melodies and was always a master orchestrator. What masterful melodic, tonal pieces have composers like Ashley Fure^ or many others of her generation, ever been known for? My belief is you should to be able to actually write "good-sounding" music, to be able to deconstruct it and go the atonal route. For instance, composers like Berg, Webern and Schoenberg were absolute geniuses, because they could compose more tonal music at a masterful level; they simply chose not to. It is therefore much easier for even non-atonal-lovers to begrudgingly accept their later works, as they were simply experimenting, treading new ground. I have been through the American conservatory system, twice; it is infested with composers and composition professors who seem to think that, even if you couldn't write an actual good melody to save your life, you can somehow become a good composer and be welcomed with open arms by the critic community. I remember playing in a student composer reading/recording session where a student composer couldn't even tell me if they meant for one note to be a C or a C#, when I asked them for clarification. And I also know from student composer friends back during my time in conservatory (one of whom is a big JW fan and writes very interesting semi-tonal music that is both original, and yet accessible), that student composers who write in a more tonal style tend to be shunned by peers and professors these days, who view atonality as the only way to go... It's a sad state. Anyways, the bottom line is that I have nothing against composers like the masters I listed above, as well as many in the 20th century. But this crop of newer, younger composers of which there is no evidence that they can write anything that actually sounds good or that a general audience would ever want to hear, is a trend that is turning away many potential classical music fans. I have no problem with Williams' more atonal-sounding works, because he is a proven master along the lines of the past greats, who obviously knows what he is doing. That said, it is my belief that just as opera and ballet music were once considered unfit for the concert hall, by critics—despite being "popular" art forms for the masses—film music is currently in the same boat, but post-Vienna that may begin to change.

Yeah, it makes sense that he'd first want to test out the program with a more shoddy orchestra!

Oh my god - "Remembering Childhood" just came on on streamingsoundtracks while I was still jotting down fading memories of the concert and I am standing here in the living room kitchen right now, crying. oO Ah, flying theme came on - getting myself together. ...I am definitely looking forward to the concert video on physical media - will be looking for our "little" daughter on there. Ahhh

Seriously, with a city full of potential stalkers (JWFans), I'd do the same!

Well, he is in his late eighties. If he wants to go home to water his plants he has every right to.

My first batch of 2020!

Fantastic. Love the rendition of the magic theme while walking through the camp and the Family theme for Harry entering the tent is a nice touch. I think this is really driving home the fact that the thematic foundation of the first 3 films was so strong and continuing with the thematic material would have paid such rich dividends later on in the franchise. These themes could definitely grow up and mature with the characters. What a missed opportunity the film-makers had. Even if they could not get Williams, they should have kept his themes.