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My love for music has never been greater. I’ve never been more excited about writing and conducting and doing all the things I can do with what time I have to do it, how precious it all is. I’m a grateful man. What a great quote!

Really? I thought for an interview of its kind, this was unusually revealing, like with JW's discussion of the amount of redone music and him getting into the details of thematic transformation w/ Kylo Ren's motif. Particularly with the former, though JW says he loved it and was happy to create all these alternate cues, you can tell from the way he brings it up that it's not his preferred way of doing things. Here's a transcription of the discussion of Kylo Ren's transformed theme:

Interview now available on demand: https://media.kusc.org/audio/2020/01/20200131-Williams-Star-Wars.mp3?_=4 Sadly is just the interview and no music... I'm guessing the original broadcast featured excerpts from TROS?

I think I just heard JW say they recorded 226 minutes of music for TROS! And btw. there is something oddly satisfying about hearing TROS aired on the radio, with the words "Now playing: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, music by John Williams". I never made the connection between Herrmann's tenure at the CBS and Williams' father working there. Nice to know A.D. 2020 that "old Williams" played under young Herrmann in the 1930s. Sheds a new light on how JW must have looked at his later friend and mentor with respect, having gotten to observe him first as a child. I had no idea their connection went that far into the past! Whenever Williams talks about Herrmann, I note these things down, because they are not to be found even in the latter's biography.

Wonderful interview! Love it. 226 minutes of music composed and conducted by the Maestro for the finale of the Star Wars Saga! That is amazing and a new record! Three hours and 46 minutes of music!!! I am praying that the Maestro and Mike Mattesino, who as we know is his personal music archivist, will work with Lucasfilm and release all nine scores expanded and remastered in the definitive treatment that Maestro John Williams' work deserves. Jeez, that would comprise three or four discs worth for Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker alone! Phenomenal.

So 226 minutes of music recorded in only 11 days. That's staggering! And this has to be Williams' longest film score of all time, correct? Amazingly it will still fit on 3CDs if Mike gets the chance to expand it properly. Can't imagine what hidden gems exist in the 100+ minutes of music we haven't heard a note of.

That's interesting! I guess he just scored the film wall to wall and wanted input into the volume of music in the final cut. And unsurprisingly, confirmation John scored the whole Death Star saber fight AND the infamous TIE flip sequence, but it was all lifted out: Holy hell, if Mike ever gets to work on the sequel trilogy the most interesting score will be saved until last. It's like there's a completely unreleased JW score locked in Disney's archives! On a side note, I've never heard of him attending a mixing session before! The closest thing that springs to mind is him checking with the sound team on Jurassic Park to hear their dinosaur vocalizations so he could ensure the music didn't clash with it (but that was before he even wrote the score).

Definitely not historical. Well, let me clarify because this is multilayered. We are hearing a romantic French version of what ancient Arabian music sounded like. That influenced the next generation of modal composers like Ravel, Vaughan Williams, Respighi ergo Miklos Rozso in his biblical epics ergo JW in the closest thing he did to a biblical epic, Raiders of the Lost Ark, when he needs to draw on that tradition quickly. So we are sort of hearing a romanticized French impressionistic version of this style that we associate with the period. Hollywood dumbs epochs of styles because they might use an element from 4,000 years ago plus french romanticism with something from contemporary islamic heritage (like a call to prayer) to immediately establish an expected sound world with primitive instrumentation (heavy percussion and emphasis on rhythms and archaic modes) and that is what you are hearing. My point is that you "hear" this as historically arabic because you are western and heard the western version of what traditionally arabian music sounds like. This is what the authentic stuff sounded like which if we heard it in a film would be authentic but wouldnt make us think of ancient arabia:

J.J. is a man who...makes a lot of changes *chuckle*

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Interview with Matthew Wood and David Acord. Music talk begins at 13:25. They said JW attended the final mix a few times, and every now and then would suggest they drop cues. https://soundworkscollection.com/post/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-oscar-podcast-2020

World Premiere: City Light Symphony Orchestra. Thiago Tiberio, conductor KKL Luzern Concert Hall, Luzern, Switzerland December 4th and 5th, 2020 https://www.citylightconcerts.ch/event/dances-with-wolves-kkl-luzern/ Finally, John Barry is getting’ some L2P love.

Tonight at 9pm PST on Classical KUSC Radio, John Williams will be guest on the program KUSC at the Movies and will speak with host Jim Svejda about his Academy Award-nominated score for The Rise of Skywalker. The interview will be available online streaming afterwards. Here you can find the interviews with this year's other nominees: https://www.kusc.org/radio/programs/evening-program-movies-week-interviews-on-demand/ FYI, the interview was recorded a few days ago. KUSC's Brian Lauritzen posted a pic of JW with him and Jim Svejda on Twitter:

Wonderful interview. I can't wait for him to come back.

Well, time to do some math. According to the info we have, there's a little more than 120 minutes of music on the movie. Out of these, about 15 minutes are tracked from other Episodes. So, regardless of its usage, on TROS there is 105 - 110 minutes of music composed for TROS. Add this to the about 7 minutes 40 seconds of concert suites on the OST. So, this means that, for now, we have between 113 minutes and 118 minutes of music composed for TROS that we know. Of course, there's lots of differences between the OST and the film versions. I haven't done a more detailed analysys, but let's suppose the material on the OST that is not on the movie (Speeder Chase, the beginning of Battle of the Resistance) is about 5 to 10 minutes of music. To conclude, we have about 123 to 128 minutes of music that we know of, either from the movie or the OST. So, it leaves about 98 to 103 minutes of completly unheard music composed for this movie. Of course, I imagine that, on these 100 minutes, a lot of it is alternates, unused inserts, early versions, of course, but some of it could be interesting to hear, like the music for the beginning of the sunken Death Star duel. For TLJ, I imagine that, because of the iso, and considering JW recorded about 185 minutes, that there's less than 1h of completly unreleased material, probably to 35 to 40 minutes (still a lot, but comparatively less than the Abrams flicks, lol). On average, that's about 20m30s per day. Maybe they do about 10 minutes in the morning and 10 in the evening? In any case, this is impressive for an 87 year old man. It would be interesting to calculate the average minutes of music recorded per day for other movies, to see how this compares to his scores when he was younger.

https://assets.adg.org/media/submissions/2019-12-27_11-27-04/SW_ADG_PDF.pdf Production design "FYC" booklet. Some really interesting stuff in here!

I can understand why Williams removed the music in those two scenes. I hope to listen to those cues and maybe I'll love them as much as the music not used in Empire Strikes Back, but I can see why the sound effects and the silence works well there.

He said he absolutely loved Vienna, that it was a beautiful city and very picturesque with the snow. The whole experience was thrilling for him and he mentioned (twice) that he’d love to go back!

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Yes, it was very gratifying to hear JW asked and respond so thoughtfully about that musical detail! Wish he were asked those sorts of questions more often! Tallying the themes that are recapped in TROS depends a bit on what you define as a theme and what you count as a recurrence. But by my count, there's around ~17-18 previously established true themes brought back (noticeably lacking anything from the prequels or TLJ), plus the 5-6 new themes for TROS.

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All good points in general, but I'm not really seeing the connection to this passage in particular. The Ark theme doesn't use the sort of harmonic language and instrumentation that you normally get with the type of music you're talking about. If anything, it's always struck me as a uniquely Western musical in-joke, using the so-called "devil's interval" to represent the Judeo-Christian God. For what you're talking about, I'd look more at the music for the arrival in Cairo or for the swordsman in the marketplace. @First TROS March Accolyte, you're not imagining the similarity between these. It's a B minor chord - just below the C minor chord heard in "The Map Room: Dawn" - and it's voiced very similarly. I'm guessing it's unintentional, born of Williams' familiarity with a wide range of orchestral works and there only being so many notes and so many instruments to work with.

You know the drill! ...and then he said; I know, but all the good composers are dead!

Can't say they sound particularly similar. The whimsy in Desplat's track definitely sets it apart from the melancholic mood Elfman was going for. That bit of instrumentation you highlighted is a bit close, but that's about it. Honestly, it reminds me more of the first minute and 40 seconds from this Oldfield track: Admittedly, I think it's more the general vibe than anything the track does composition wise, but it stuck out to me nonetheless. Also, where was any of that in Desplat's HP scores? Would've enjoyed those far more if there were more moments like the Benjamin Button track. Good stuff!

I bet nobody there knows his true beliefs.

Great game and decent dramatic and suspenseful game too. I clocked it in a weekend and found it an adrenaline rush on easy mode.

Excuse me?! Has the 1st of Februari gave you some extra audacity, Richard? You might be pounding on your chest now but soon you'll be wailing for the good old times.

Looks like Williams is having an arm wrestle!

I actually kind of like film music review sites having a retro look. For instance I kind of prefer the look of the old Movie-Wave, to its current incarnation. Maybe it's just because that's how these sites were when I grew up reading them, and I am averse to change. Though I do confess that Filmtracks is a tad tough on the eyes at times...

Yes! It's nice to hear him speak about his love of modal transposition and reharmonization, now I hear his voice when I see the variations in the catalog With another 100+(!) minutes of score confirmed recorded we may find something from the prequels or TLJ. I'd love to hear his thoughts on Duel of the Fates, Battle of the Heroes or Anakin.

Oh I'm sure. Like I said in my post. Snicket is certainly an extremely satisfactory OST. There's not much reason to spend the money and time to expand it out at this point, as much as I'd want it. Yeah, typically Newman does do Album assembly like usual, editing cues together, cutting things out and what not, but he typically includes everything you would want for the most part. There's not usually any missing themes or ideas (like POA missing almost all occurrences of Pettigrew and the Sirius Black material). It's typically all there. I'd be very intrigued to hear more of his alternates or some of his experiments. To be a fly on the wall at those sessions would be quite something.

I can answer here. I adore this score and it was one of the first ones that I obsessed over in wanting all the film versions. Honestly, most of it does match the film pretty decently. It's a usual sort of approach. Some cues are edited together, some have micro-edits and remove more sparse, experimental, or "redundant" bits in the film. There are a couple that are completely different, but not many. Mostly we're just missing stuff. Let's see off the top of my head (and referencing some notes) and this is not everything, obviously I'm not including the Pit Orchestra cues and all the tracking of Loverly Spring, but you get the picture... 23 Loverly Spring The OST version is missing several inserts/overlays from the version that appear at the top of the film. There's extra vocals at the very beginning and some harp flourishes added. 01 The Bad Beginning Has a much shorter version of "Loverly Spring" on the front of it on the OST, but otherwise it's basically the film version give or take some edits 03 The Baudelaire Orphans Full recorded version, it's edited down in the film. XX Justice Strauss Appears to be tracked from "Resilience" 02 Chez Olaf This one is where the major differences start happening. Everything on the OST was in the film, but the OST has some of the more experimental bits edited out. It's just edited down for a better listening experience. 04 In Loco Parentis Full recorded version, edited down in the film. XX Chores Seems to be a shorter version of Puttanesca with a different ending. 09 Puttanesca OST is edited, it's the film version, but it's missing a section. 05 Resilience Pretty much the film version, it might be edited in the movie, but I don't recall. Same recording though. 07 An Unpleasant Incident Involving A Train The first 40 or so seconds of this are in the film, but the rest of the cue was dropped in favor of tracked music from 4M8 Hurricane Herman and Attack of the Hook Handed Man, plus an original insert recorded to better incorporate the tracked material called "Train Tag". This is easily the biggest editing mess of the whole film. XX Take Them Mr. Poe This cue doesn't appear at all on the OST, but is a simple combo of the opening of "Bad Beginning" and a new version of "Lachrymose Ferry" or a new recording / edit of a section from "4M8 Hurricane Herman" 06 The Reptile Room Full recorded version, it's edited down in the film. XX Sanctuary Not on the OST, not surprised it wasn't, it's a short, more ambient underscore version of Resilience. XX Meet Stephano A new version of Olaf's theme, entirely missing from the OST, it's not super different from Chez Olaf, but it's definitely a different recording and a new cue altogether with many different elements. 19 Snaky Message Pretty sure this one equals exactly what is in the film. 10 Curious Feeling Of Falling Full recorded version, it's edited down in the film. 11 Regarding The Incredibly Deadly Viper I'll explain this later, but this is where things start getting curious. This cue is a combo of a cue from the end of the film "Olaf Scheme Pt2." and the cue the track was named for "Regarding The Incredibly Deadly Viper". Basically the first two minutes are "Olaf Scheme" and then it switches to "Regarding The Incredibly Deadly Viper". The portion dropped from the OST is basically the same, but much sparser, which explains why they combined the cues here. 13 Lachrymose Ferry This cue matches more of what appears in "Take Them Mr. Poe" listed above, just missing an overlay and a different ending, but it's possible it was re-written for that scene. Regardless, the OST version seems to be what was fully recorded. The film, however, uses a more ambient version of this cue. 14 Concerning Aunt Josephine The OST includes a much bigger intro for this cue. The film version nixes this and just starts about 9 seconds in. The film also drops everything after 1:23 or so. I'd imagine this was a combination of different cues. Two of which were unused? Not sure. 15 VFD Full recorded version, it's edited down in the film. 16 The Wide Window Full recorded version and matches the film. XX Ike's Room This cue is technically on the OST. It's pulled from underlying elements of "Wide Window" starting at around 0:53 and is more ambient in nature. XX Captain Sham Completely new version of the set piece / victory theme featuring a fiddle starting with a short comedic bit. Lovely little cue. Not on the OST. XX White Face Women Just an edit of 5M4 Verisimilitude from the OST. Literally just the first 6 seconds. 17 Cold As Ike Like "Concerning Aunt Josephine", the OST features an unused cue for the opening. A big brass growl. I assume it was meant to underscore the reveal of the house or perhaps the broken window. The rest of the cue matches what's in the film. The film might have some edits. 18 4M8 Hurricane Herman Full recorded version and matches the film. 08 Curdled Cave Full recorded version, it's edited down in the film. 20 The Regrettable Episode Of The Leeches Full recorded version, it's edited down quite a bit in the film. 21 Interlude With Sailboat Completely unused in the film. Seems like it would've scored a more extended sequence involving the two boats. The scene is unscored in the film, but it's basically another version of "Concerning Aunt Josephine". Personally, I'd have rathered this cue get dropped and include the "Captain Sham" cue, but what do I know. XX Jo's Demise This cue is actually a sparser version of 4:09-4:44 or so from the otherwise unused OST version of "An Unpleasant Incident Involving A Train". It removes all the train elements and leaves just the strings and flute. So...it's kind of on the OST? XX Our New Play Technically, all the elements of this cue are on the OST. It's kind of an edit of "Chez Olaf", but has isolated elements. Super short. 12 The Marvelous Marriage Full recorded version, it's edited down in the film. 22 5M4 Verisimilitude Full recorded version, it's edited down slightly in the film. XX Olaf Scheme Pt 2 This mostly matches the OST track "Regarding The Incredibly Deadly Viper", but as discussed early, the ending was dropped and combined with that earlier cue. The film has a crescendo ending that goes into some of the Pit Orchestra source cues. XX What Would Violet Do? Not on the OST. Great little reprise of "Cold As Ike", but has more energy and movement. Short, but definitely one to be missed. 24 A Woeful Wedding Full recorded version and matches the film. 25 Attack Of The Hook-Handed Man Full recorded version and matches the film. 26 Taken By Supreeze The OST track is a combo of two cues: "Taken By Supreeze Pt 1 & 2". Technically, both parts appear in the film, but Part 2 (1:21-End) was to score a Deleted Ending. The very end of Part 2 is tracked onto Part 1 to give it a bigger ending. 27 One Last Look Full recorded version and matches the film. 28 The Letter That Never Came Full recorded version and matches the film. 29 Drive Away (End Title) Full recorded version and matches the film. So, the OST is made up of material recorded for the film and typically matches quite well. There's definitely some differences in some places though. My theory for how this score ended up working from a production stand point is that I think some of the repeating material was recorded once or twice and reused as elements in other cues that either weren't scored initially or they had planned to be tracked from the beginning. The film consistently drops elements from recordings and uses sparser versions, see "Regarding The Incredibly Deadly Viper", "Lachrymose Ferry", "Ike's Room", "Jo's Demise", "Our New Play", etc. I wouldn't be surprised if many things were recorded as samples or elements and then looped or reused in the final cues. This matches what they state in the documentary on the DVD and as well as what I was told when I spoke to Steve Kujala. Newman liked to record with small groups of instruments sometimes and it was all very experimental. Director's were generally discouraged from attending those, I assume, because they were recording elements and fragments of things to use later with the full orchestra. Here's what Steve had to say about Newman and a bit about Snicket: Overall, the differences from the OST to the film don't sound drastic enough to warrant an expansion. I wish there could be. I'd like to hear clean versions of the other versions and extra cues. Plus there's plenty of alternates and inserts and quite a few source cues. Oh well. We'll just have to appreciate the OST and anything that can be pulled from the film.

GENISYS allowed, is not!

Then again, nothing sounds better than Kleiber‘s Beethoven recordings. 😉 I kind of see what you‘re saying, the Nelsons recordings don‘t sound quite as clear. You absolutely should check out Carlos Kleiber‘s recordings of the 5th and 7th symphonies with the VPO as well as the 4th with the Bavarian State Orchestra. I completely adore these recordings. 😍 I‘d forget about the Thielemann cycle - it may sound clearer, but the interpretations are imho worse than Nelsons. I think Blomstedt with the Gewandhaus Orchestra would be a good choice in terms of a 21st cycle with great sound quality.

Wailing man it is.

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The full version that was shown (and taken down in the meantime), had an extra eye or planet element on the last letter, making the spelling of Dune much more obvious. This a recreation of what was shown:

The Land Before Time Horner's opus.

JW: It's very nice to finally shake hands with you, Mr. Morricone. Now who's that lovely old gentleman sitting over there?

I honestly don't get all the praise for Hildur's JOKER... Also, regarding his TROS comments, do these people not get that directors these days (cough JJ cough) are not tending to give Williams room for his music to breathe or "pop"? Spielberg lets Williams have his moments; JJ on the other hand suffocates Williams' music. For instance, the glorious choral finale of "Farewell" could have been an all-time great JW moment for a Spielberg film; in a JJ movie it's practically an afterthought.

We‘ve all made our OST+FYC combos, and would love to have the FYC parts in higher quality and a lossless format.

Not exactly SW-related but this video with John Boyega choked me up. What a beautiful son!

Yep! It's the Death Star motif, which doubles as a triumphant heroes-blow-up-a-ship motif. One of many such wonderful details in ROTJ's score that makes it so rewarding to revisit over and over.

I understand why someone might think it's botched if you're looking at it from a POV where soundtrack albums are meant to have as close to all the newly composed music for the movie as possible, or alternately, that it's supposed to have a collection of all the film's "big moments" represented. But if you're not looking at it from that POV, I also understand looking at it as a good album. I also consider it a good album on its own, I think the music placed on it is good, the listening of going front to back on it is a very fulfilling, entertaining experience. Not that you'd need support from other people's opinions to validate your own, but if you wanted to, you could probably go through the OST thread when the album first leaked and watch people here come to that same conclusion upon their first or second listen, in real time. Despite the fact there's a lot of missing music from what's in the film (as well as a lot of tracked music and a very weirdly "remixed" version of Darth Vader's Death I'm not looking forward to re-encountering when this hits home video) I think not only is the album still the best presentation of the Sequel Trilogy, but some of his strongest work in a very long time. I'm not AS down on the prospects for an expanded release as others are, but my current hopes are that the response to The Last Jedi's isolated score (the fact there was a response at all was honestly surprising in and of itself) means Disney recognizes what an important feature this might be in selling their big boxset coming in a couple months.

Disney, they know how to join the dots of this sign: $. Do they expand a lot of their recent movie soundtracks?

Did Jay put a clyp of that one? You don't listen well. Many people was saying the exact same thing when Revenge of the Sith came out but I noticed many highlights missing right away And your opinion of the Lando cue is like not wanting ESB "Aboard the Executor" because it's "about the same as The Imperial March" . The last half of Lando Returns is burried in SFX and features even more cool variations of the Star Wars B theme .It's what" scherzo for x-wing" should have been Best Case Scenario : Disney realizes their mistake in releasing a 1 c.d. OST and we have a iso score like TLJ or a proper complete release next year Worst Case Scenario : Still checking JWfan in 20 years from my hospital death bed hoping for an expanded release.

You could probably say the same thing about Mendelssohn and classical music, if you wanted to.

Could you remind me what these are? Using 1997 2CD set track names and timestamps Droid Motif 1-02 Ice Planet Hoth 6:27-6:50 1-03 Wampa's Lair 2:03-2:33 1-05 Beneath The AT-AT 8:02-8:10 1-07 Arrival on Dagobah 1:00-1:30, 1:53-2:04 2-07 Betrayal at Bespin 3:11-3:18 2-08 Deal with the Dark Lord 0:14-0:37 2-11 Hyperspace 6:43-7:08 Cloud City Motif 2-06 Lando's Palace 0:00-0:54 2-07 Betrayal At Bespin 1:06-1:40 2-10 Clash of Lightsabers 1:59-2:06 And heck, while we're at it Dark Side Motif 1-09 Han Solo and the Princess 3:06-3:26 1-11 The Magic Tree 3:56-4:05 2-10 Clash of Lightsabers 0:07-0:41 2-11 Rescue from Cloud City 0:28-0:47 Boba Fett Motif 2-03 Attacking a Star Destroyer 0:00-0:30 2-05 City In The Clouds 1:51-1:58 2-07 Betrayal at Bespin 1:51-1:56 Captured on Cloud City Motif 2-09 Carbon Freeze 4:17-4:51 2-09 Darth Vader's Trap 8:11-8:19 2-09 Departure of Boba Fett 8:29-8:43 Escape from Cloud City Motif 2-10 Rescue from Cloud City 2:25-2:39, 3:02-3:13, 4:13-5:05 2-10 Hyperspace 5:09-5:15, 5:26-5:33. 5:38-5:41, 5:53-6:01, 6:11-6:16, 8:16-8:27 The Empire Strikes Back is an awesome score.

Best Williams orchestrator? Williams. Marian -