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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

I found this on Youtube and didn't wanna make a thread for it. Amazingly, someone re-recorded one of the source music pieces from The Fury in 2014 Something Williams obviously made up on the spot in 10 minutes probably, and it gets performed 35 years later.

I have a quick CHAMBER OF SECRETS question: If Ron and Harry fly the Ford Anglia to Hogwarts, how do Mr. and Mrs. Weasley get back to The Burrow?

The same role, you ask?

I posted an MP4 of this video back in 2017 here:

How great is this?! They posted this two days ago, slightly edging out the Boston Pops with their video (not that it's a contest!): Would love to see more orchestras follow suit with these types of videos. Amazing work! And the real deal from last year: Such an infectiously fun piece, I wish Williams pulled this out more often than, well, never.

I actually found Half-Life 2's difficulty to be cheap and its AI combatants disappointingly simplistic. I've played much much harder shooters than it (Halo's heroic and legendary settings absolutely blow it away in challenge). It's a testament to that game's other qualities though that it is still considered a great videogame. I'll probably play the first game's remake soon. And the recent VR one on PS5.

There is an alternate version of Jedi Steps but, based on what the lead french horn player said, the actual Binary Sunset recording was the same in both versions (and Williams didn't re-record it when they recorded the new version of Jedi Steps). I think we know there's no alternates for the very end of The Last Jedi, but originally there was a different version of Luke's death. TROS was the perfect opportunity for a Rey's Theme finale, to signify that a new journey lies ahead for Rey, not just a literal regurgitation of the musical identity that began Luke's journey. Such predictable and unimaginative spotting; shame these filmmakers just couldn't break out of that mold with some of these musical choices.

I'm sure there were major events before 2002, or what do you say, @Ricard?

And we see him playing the chimes motif on piano for Daisy in the TROS featurette (presumably the piano solo from The Force is With You). There was some exclusive TLJ featurette that someone recorded on their phone, which played before the movie started in some US cinema (and hilariously spoiled the final cue of the film). I wonder if that featurette had the footage? Sadly it was never released officially (only some totally different VR 360 thing) so the phone recording that person captured is the only known copy we have... and I have no idea who uploaded it or which thread it was posted in.

I’ll comb through some stuff I have access to as well.

Just rewatched Raiders of the Lost Ark in a long time. Honestly, I don't get the hype too much, everything going on seems kinda shallow. The only thing I liked was the music and one of the battle scenes. The Time Machine (2002) is more interesting + has a better OST.

Doe is correct. Composer is John Williams. John... Doe...

I know this is probably a longshot but I'm hoping one of the summer titles is War of the Worlds which will be celebrating its 15th anniversary this June. Karol

The one in Flying with Chewie is so similar to the one in Hyperspace, they might both be adapted from the same JW sketch? the only reason you say this is because those JP theme statements don’t have RcP dRuMs, right? They really do sound classic Powell, cf. all the HTTYDs, and also Powell’s Instagram post where he said specifically that he wrote them...

BluRay track list from Amazon.de 1. THE FLIGHT TO NEVERLAND (aus "Hook") 2. EXCERPTS (aus "Unheimliche Begegnung der Dritten Art") 3. HEDWIG'S THEME (aus Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 4. THEME (aus Sabrina") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 5. DONNYBROOK FAIR (aus "In einem fernen Land ") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 6. DEVIL'S DANCE (aus "Die Hexen von Eastwick") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 7. ADVENTURES ON EARTH (aus "E.T. - Der Ausserirdische") 8. THEME (aus "Jurassic Park") 9. DARTMOOR, 1912 (aus "Gefährten") 10. OUT TO SEA & THE SHARK CAGE FUGUE (aus "Der Weisse Hai") 11. MARION'S THEME (aus "Indiana Jones: Jäger des Verlorenen Schatzes") 12. THE REBELLION IS REBORN (aus "Star Wars: Die Letzten Jedi") 13. LUKE & LEIA (aus "Star Wars: Die Rückkehr der Jedi-Ritter" 14. MAIN TITLE (aus "Star Wars: Eine Neue Hoffnung") 15. THEME (aus "Zapfenstreich") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 16. THE DUEL (aus "Die Abenteuer von Tim und Struppi: Das Geheimnis der Einhorn") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 17. REMEMBRANCES (aus "Schindlers Liste") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 18. RAIDER'S MARCH (aus "Indiana Jones: Jäger des Verlorenen Schatzes") - (mit Anne-Sophie Mutter) 19. THE IMPERIAL MARCH (aus "Star Wars: Das Imperium schlägt zurück") 20. John Williams und Anne-Sophie Mutter im Gespräch

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It would be nice, but Shout Factory is not famous for including isolated scores in their releases. If Shout includes it, it'll be something to shout about.