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Happy Birthday Maestro @88..... [just saw this on my facebook Sony Classical page] https://www.facebook.com/1497289083843603/posts/2489944331244735/

For over 30 years of the 88 that you have been around, I have have been enthralled by your music. I have listened to it for countless hours. I have formed many friendships because of it, and it has impacted my life in ways that are simply undeniable. Thank you John Williams Thank you JWFAN.

JW's score for The Adventures of Tintin is a stone cold masterpiece - an enormously propulsive work with over a dozen themes and motifs that power a very busy, nimble and complex score. I was disappointed to see the ambivalence people seem to have towards JW's Tintin score. That stops now. I think the score in the movie is well represented by still somewhat marred by sound effects. Here is a score only version of a riotous sea battle that Haddock recounts. Watch this to marvel at the intricacy of Williams' composition - individual punches, hits, sword moves, gunshots are synced to the music along with syncing to several cuts. Well, the syncing is done by me but to honor Williams' original intentions. I have taken the OST cue and and fit the picture to it. Only in two places did I microedit the music. Otherwise the music fits the scene remarkably well and you can see the enormous effort Williams has put into the cue for it to be still be entertaining while being so closely matched to the picture. This also represents some of Williams best action music last decade. It is completely melodic and uses two primary themes - the Unicorn theme representing the ship and Red Rakham's Pirate theme (and no this is not the dueling theme from The Adventures Continues) receive several explosive enormous statements as the furious pirate battle unfolds over the high seas. I am starting a thread here because I intend to create several videos for the numerous action scenes in the film, each intricately scored by Williams.

As many here already know, I've created LEGO BrickHeadz versions of John Williams. Here's one of them at Williams's concert at the Musikverein: (I also photographed it at Tanglewood, but that was before the beard redesign so the model isn't as accurate). Just in time for his 88th birthday, I've finally completed the instructions and put them online so everyone can build their own: http://bricks.schedenig.name/

Happy birthday, John William. Composer of the Star Trek songs.

Perfect selection of score programs planned for today: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (LLL) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (LLL) Jurassic Park (LLL) Happy birthday Maestro Williams!

The Marine Band just uploaded videos from this concert to Youtube! Here are the videos of Williams’ surprise introduction, remarks to the audience, and the two pieces he conducted: the 1941 March and the Imperial March. And here are videos of Lt. Col. Fettig conducting The Cowboys Overture and With Malice Toward None, with Thomas Hooten playing the solo trumpet!!!

The Sony post is gone, but not forgotten.

I keep forgetting that a video of this exists:

As if we needed more evidence that Sony Music is run by fucking morons. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise they never did prequel expansions after TPM UE. They would've released four CDs of guitar solos.

Recording sessions now underway for the 2021 Best Score Oscar winner:

That is disturbingly embarrassing for Sony.

Yes, the annual Jay Mike interview is way waaaaaaaay overdue (though we've gotten podcasts with often more casual questions to hold us over). But it's obvious he's just waiting for Hook to get the final signoff and go into disc production so he can ask him about that too!

What some might not know is that Williams is also a talented writer! He even won the 1973 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction for his novel "Augustus": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_(Williams_novel) Later, starting with Jaws, he decided to focus on composing (and playing guitar, of course). Happy Birthday, Maestro!!

Happy Birthday, Maestro. My favorite artist of any medium, of all time.

Even Bärenreiter joined the mockery:

Don't know if this has been posted here yet, but you can download the covers for the albums in high resolution (3000x3000) and as well some high-res press photos from the recording session from ASM's website:https://www.anne-sophie-mutter.de/en/page/media/anne-sophie-mutter-photos/

The harpsichord take that was used in the film was not found on any of the elements Mike had, so he used a different take rather than having no harpsichord at all.

Seems like JJ, in all his fanboyism, thought it was enough for Williams just to be involved in the film, like his name was more important than his work. Johnson was more interested in actually collaborating with Williams. Of course, TFA is still a masterpiece to my ears and the best of the three in score, but it’s faults (low mixing, short/choppy cues) speak to that different approach. I think TLJ has more going on under the hood.

You know the worst term in modern film criticism and discussion? Needle drops! What a punk ass hippy term. "The needle drops are pretty good in this film." But yes, modern film critics have zero idea what a good film score is. Ask this people about the greatest score of all time and Social Network and Dunkirk will be in Top 10.

Maybe it's good that they don't handle the Vienna concert release. Could you imagine unwrapping a package only to see a confused Guitar Williams staring back at you?

The HP3 plot thickens. Can't wait for Prisoner of Azkaban Complete (For Real This Time) 20th Anniversary Edition coming in 2024

#getmelornebalfe

Happy Birthday maestro. Thanks for bringing so much good in my life.

Happy birthday! In honour of this day, I've finally put my LEGO Williams building instructions online:

88 it's the infinity!!! Happy Birthday!

Ultimate proof that they're the same person.

There could be many many versions written, then rewritten before they would have been recorded.

He's referring to the obviously incomplete digital masters Mike used instead of the analog tapes. And probably wondering why they're so incomplete that Mike had to use wrong takes or pull things from the OST master. Come on, Warner, this was only recorded 16 years ago in the digital age, it's not like it's a 1953 score with one person alive who was there in the booth.

I like (not love) Joker's score, but Hildur's other amazingly acclaimed score, Chernobyl, I think this one is actually more dangerous to scores in general than Joker. When you see a score that is basically the sounds of nuclear plants, indistinguishable from the SFX, being that beloved and awarded by these fucking idiots, it means that they want more scores like this going forward: pretty much just sound effects, no emotion, no comment about the characters or the narrative, nothing, just the same sounds the characters are hearing.

I am told this sold extremely well, better than expected, which is wonderful news. It's pretty great that JW has fans for all eras of his work, and that the labels can continue to work on scores from all his periods rather that one era being such a better seller they might have to make choices about what to expand. It really feels like every score the man ever wrote will be expanded by Mike within the next 10 years - or less!

It's so weird because, in the case of Abrams, the admiration would seem to be at odds with the results. Abrams can't say enough good things about Williams, talks about growing up with his music, spoke about how surreal it was getting to work with him, etc. That somehow doesn't translate over to the films he worked on, especially with TROS. I don't doubt Abrams when he says the things he does concerning Williams, but it's just hard to rectify the discrepancy when you getting to work with your childhood hero somehow equates to insufferably moving around, cutting up, and dialing out their pieces of music. You know, for the previous 2 ST films, whenever I heard someone say stuff like "there was no good new music, the only good stuff were the old returning themes," I would usually just chalk it up to that person either not having familiarized themselves with the score enough, having not paid attention well enough during the film, or them choosing to hear only what they wanted to hear (not to say you can't dislike the ST scores, but to say there is "zero good new music" in them, I mean, come on). But with this film, I totally get why someone would walk away with that feeling and don't blame them in the slightest. The massive moments of musical prominence in this film are almost all entirely given to older themes: Yoda's theme as Luke lifts the X-Wing, the Imperial March as the Star Destroyers are assembled, the main titles as Lando's fleet arrives, the Force theme as Rey hears the voices of the Jedi, etc. It's absolutely bonkers how little the new material is able to shine.

I think we all dreaded the sound team from TFA returning, and for good reason. Neither they nor Abrams show Williams any respect with his score, unlike Johnson and his sound team (who went to great lengths to protect and showcase John's music). Johnson got Star Wars. Abrams didn't have a clue.

JWFan drama is always enthralling. Wish I was here during the infamous Vanishing Tyrannosaurus Teeth impeachment.

HOOK! HOOK! HOOK!

Well, they usually manage to do swift releases with their New Year's Day concert and the Midsummer Night's one, but I see your point that this is something special, not only for us... ...so the longer we have to wait, the better the release will be! Yes, that's a nice way to think about it. Can we agree on that? P.S.: There even might be a scheduling hurdle because the TV channel as co-producer may have exclusive rights for its broadcast "early this year"...

Many Happy Galactic Returns Emperor Williams - Hail!

I was under the impression Jay and Mike didn't definitively know whether many of those infamous POA alternates were even recorded -- and with the 5.1 digital masters incomplete, there's no way to know unless the analog masters can be studied (as those would contain every raw take, not just the finalised 5.1 masters). And on PS, perhaps they were hoping the speech JW gave on the morning of September 12 (following the 9/11 attacks) would turn up? From memory Mike said they couldn't find it in the sessions, so it must not have been recorded (but several musicians told him about it).

D'OH!

I totally agree. In contrast to this, this is the soundtrack from the 2010s I return most to because it is so endlessly entertaining and full of little details. My kids love it also, so this was playing during car trips more often than I can count.

They're probably just trying to move those titles. CE3K, Superman and Minority Report will sell themselves.

Those are what they have in stock right now, I guess. And HA2 is anything but boring!

If this wasn't another anthropomorphic children's film, I'd be completely disgusted that Disney, with their monied army of CG artists and effects companies, would put this out there as anything other than a borderline experimental film. Here's the rub, filmmakers: If the CGI can't convincingly portray whatever it is you're trying to show, DON'T do it. If they'd made this a fully animated feature, the dog's uncharacteristic motions might've come across as somewhat charming.

Any consideration into adding themes from WAR HORSE?

Or his spreadsheet.

Honestly, as a European, I find Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals incomparably better. They are much less predictable than the Oscars, and the films that they show are more concerned with depicting something artistic and creative in an original way, rather than being appealing to the masses. Parasite by Bong Joon-ho seemed to be a rare exception that ticked both of those boxes this year. I can only hope it wins for Best Picture - that would be a first for a foreign film.

Johnny is looking very sharp there. And Thomas Hooten performed With Malice Toward None. I love that particular trumpet and orchestra arrangement.

I dunno. Madonna's song has grown on me since 2002.