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Was half expecting JW to act surprised and say “Oh hello there, I didn’t see you come in”

This video and performance made me shed a few tears. This was phenomenal. The sheer power that music has in uniting people. God bless Maestro John Williams, Keith Lockhart, and all the members of the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops who did this. A perfect way to thank all doctors, firefighters, police officers, first respondents and those who work to provide essential needs for many people.

Can we please get a weekly JW TV show where he shows us how to make happy little tunes? Like Bob Ross?

For overall significance to the film series, ROTS. It's the perfect ending to what was the end of the SW saga. None of the other endings make as much sense or have as much meaning. For purely the music, I prefer the TFA version. The TROS version is a pointless rehash in more ways than one. Should have ended on a grand orchestral swell on Rey's theme. But so little of TROS makes sense any ways.

I like these energetic and bombastic performances , I wonder if you can have better quality versions than You Tube (go You Tube and check out the playlist) .There's rare stuff like BFG , Patriot, Book Thief Concert Suite, extended Men of Yorktown march (better performance than Lockheart) and amazing The Lost world Frankly, these are better than a lot of the compilations we got recently

Those for sure would be a "top 3 Gothic" alone, but I mean it very generally to refer to the darker, melodramatic, almost (but not quite) operatic side. So not just the actual period Gothic setting of those pieces, but the American gothic of pieces like Nixon or Black Sunday or even Minority Report, bits of Sleepers. The Kryptonian act of Superman which I love. "The Hungry Sea" episode of Lost in Space, that weirdly explosive First Act Finale from Fiddler on the Roof. Gothic in the way ANH is that none of the other episodes quite are (possibly due to the darker sound of its recording). TLJ minus the Canto Bight sequences. Much of CE3K. When the Chinese invade in Seven Years in Tibet. The macabre, tragic or foreboding moments, still very tonal as opposed to the modernistic or experimental textures. And not the rhythmic, action/chase stuff, which I also love. Definitely it's there in places in the sound samples I heard of The River. Obviously, only one side of what he does so well. I'm looking forward to this score as I suspect it captures a more casual, personal JW ca. 1984, as well as including other sides like Americana (he has 52 flavours of that), folk and pop/contemporary. Not sure 16 year old me would agree, and would have far preferred ToD back then.

Let's not forget that he is 88 years old! His fingers are flying around like he's 28! That is what made me cry, more than the fact that it is a rare thing to see John Williams perform more than a couple of notes on the piano.

I’d pick Revenge of the Sith for sure. The storytelling connection to Luke’s moment in Ep 4 is a very satisfying way to wrap up those first six films. You might even say it rhymes! I think JW could have come up with some great alternatives for the sequel trilogy. Thoughts?

"Hey baby, did I ever tell you how I found the 24 track masters of......"

Trying to get into someone's knickers by talking about missing soundtracks?! I've officially heard it all.

They catch a bus to Charing Cross Road and Floo Powder back home from the Leaky Cauldron? They find an abandoned alley and apparate? It's magic, anything goes. But what if they didn't go with the car? Would Dobby have kept it closed? People would have noticed. He already overwrote wizards' magic and we know elf magic is different (they can apparate in places where wizards can't etc), would a wizard team even be able to lift it? Would they have found him and made a Barty Crouch-Winky scandal with Lucius? Actually, if not for their racism and superiority and ignorance, all those pureblood supremacists could use their house elves to do all kinds of chaos by overwriting wizard magic. Holy shit Dumbledore's actually doing the whole Wizarding World a huge favor by employing house elves to clean and sweep and cook: that much less house elves for dark wizards to potentially abuse for their power!

I actually always liked those old "concert hall-like" Varese recordings. They were less bothered about recreating every minutiae of the original film score and instead treated film music in the same way you would concert music. As an autonomous piece of work, if that makes sense. I like they performed and recorded these scores in unique ways because that is what made them stand out. Karol

I prefer Star Wars.

Dark of the Moon is epic schlock (major eye candy), while Bumblebee is the best entry in the franchise.

Indeed. Another (minor) detail: According to the artwork currently available, the title of the Blu-ray is "John Williams Live in Vienna", while the CD and vinyl are titled "John Williams in Vienna".

There are three different physical releases of the Vienna concerts, all three of them available for pre-order on Amazon.com: CD (August 14) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087SM43M9/ Blu-ray/CD "Deluxe Edition" https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087SCCYF1/ (August 28) https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/john-williams-anne-sophie-mutter-john-williams-in-vienna/hnum/9843487?lang=en (August 14) Vinyl https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087SD7MP9/ (August 28) https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/john-williams-anne-sophie-mutter-john-williams-in-vienna/hnum/9843489 (August 14)

Plus there’s his Winter Games Fanfare which isn’t technically for the Olympics but totally counts in spirit.

But I don't want them!

It's my favourite of his olympic pieces. And of all his celebratory fanfares perhaps the one that's closest to his "serious" concert works.

That’s no Christmas decoration on the left...that’s a Gia Voodoo Doll!

Agh I love something about how JW says "Hi" when he turns to the camera. It just imparts radiance and joy somehow.

If we’re including clips of JW playing music that is not his own, at Tanglewood in 2013 (I think?) he accompanied Audra MacDonald, just the two of them, on As Time Goes By. This is the only YouTube clip I can find, and it’s not great quality, but it was electric live (I was there ).

Job well done, Mr. Williams!

JW should do a video where he describes the various things in his office, like Elliot showing ET his toys.

"Ieem nit feckin' scohtesh!"

I'm also happy they are performing this particular piece. I remember hearing it in 1996 without knowing who composed it. It's such a memorable melody. I remember playing it once and one of my mates, who cared little about JW or film scores, said "oh, this is the Atlanta olympic theme, isn't it?". And that must have been something like 7-8 years after the games. Shows you how good this tune is. Karol

It technically hasn't been decades, @Thor. In 2012, he played a bit of piano on a 60 Minutes segment on the release of Lincoln and also as part of a Brian Williams interview focusing initially on the music he's composed for the Olympic Games, as seen here:

This is fantastic, rare and just plain heartbreaking. What a treat! While it's fun to identify the objects in his immediate surroundings, Oma Tres-style, it's first and foremost a treat to see and hear Williams playing piano -- something we haven't seen for DECADES (was the last time the Jay Leno show when they played MEMOIRS?). Just a bar or two, but enough to be uber-cool. And I love how they solved the piece itself, visually and musically. It's a fantastic one, and my 'goosebump meter' always rockets sky high whenever the piece reaches its break at 6:15.

Delightful

When I first heard GE, I thought it was a top 20 JW piece. I then cooled on it just a little bit, but after listening to way too much SW after IX came out, it is back up there. It just oozes adventure but in a pure SW way. The opening fanfare is second only to the main title in terms of openings of a JW piece (SW or otherwise). Some of the repeating figures in the middle repeat one time too many, but the main melody, little fugue, big middle blast, ongoing counterpoint are top-notch. I hope he puts out a Signature edition, but that he has not done so already is worrying. GE and AoH might be my favorite post ROTS SW music (most of which I do find excellent).

JW didn't take his full credit for CoS either. So it's possible he did a bit more on Solo and we don't know about it (but not to the extent of CoS where he ended up doing everything) .We're discovering "hints" as time goes by. The themes for Mine Mission (that sounds like the Jurassic Park jeep ride theme), the love theme(lando's closet) and Chewy's theme (especially in Reminescence therapy) all sound like Williams wrote at least a sketch for them. All the Powell fans will say no, but I can't remember any themes he wrote that were this good and so close to JW's style in other scores he did . The RCP-ified Han's theme in track 2 and 3 with the drums is more Powell's style

Hi-res version of the Blu-ray artwork: And here's a CD cover different to the one on JPC.de and Amazon (from an English-speaking site): https://www.udiscovermusic.com/classical-news/john-williams-in-vienna/ Cover from Amazon.com and JPC.de:

Very much so. You get the same feeling with Gerhardt's ESB re-recording

There's only one Binary Sunset, and none of the above nostalgia fills qualify.

I was at the Hollywood Bowl and it was too! 😁

Even though I "double dipped" on a lot of movies going from DVD to BD - including Jaws, E.T., The Indiana Jones series and a whole lot of others (too many to mention) - I never got the BD release of Star Wars. I had it on DVD, but I guess I wasn't "feeling it". And I'm not feeling it now either, neither for BD or 4K. But just to make it clear, I have nothing against double dipping. Or even tripple dipping (if you consider DVD, BD and 4K)! LOL

I thought that case was more that they didn't ask him because they were convinced he wouldn't be interested in such a thing, and he was offended that they'd think that.

From that Horn hangout I believe

It's one of the worst movies I've ever seen. That said I kinda enjoyed the first and third ones as epic schlock, but the fifth ugh.

From here Canto Bight come from

Seeing the words “John Williams” and “Wiener Philharmoniker” next to each other on the famous Yellow Label... I’ll admit that gave me the feels.

Holy cow this is the coolest video I've seen in a long time! John Williams talking directly to the camera for something to be broadcast on the internet, what a time to be alive!

Awesome! Awww, Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes right on his shelf, what a nerd!

Strange choice of track for a music video and the whole thing is rather choppy.

That's so frustrating! Recycling the same transition from TFA was one of my biggest gripes with the score. Please, please, please let this surface on a Matessino set.

Here’s the link which is live now. A very enjoyable watch and plenty for us JW fans to relish. Such legends gathered together: