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The whole gestation of Window to the Past in this score is confusing to me. I can't remember if this has already been settled here and I don't think it was addressed in MM's notes. The use of that theme and how it develops is one of my favorite things about it, it seems like such an obvious thematic choice and grows so organically in the film. It's always felt like one of those things that would have come out of the spotting... ...and yet virtually every early version of its cues was later rewritten or had an insert to include WttP -- Remembering Mother, Walk in the Woods, Dueling the Dementor, Sirius and Harry, My Dad Conjured the Patronus, Watching the Past -- I mean, is that everything except Sirius Final Scene? And Parent's Portrait, I guess, though I could see that being a later addition too. Maybe there was no score there originally....I don't know if there's evidence for that. But was it just a one-off for the finale that they decided at some point needed to be everywhere? When did they come up with that? It was late enough that these were fully orchestrated. There's that similar, alternate melody that shows up in both the early Remembering Mother and Dueling the Dementor that ended up getting cut entirely. Also the fact that the "Window to the Past" track is a stitch job. Plus the apparent debacle when Williams was given the wrong cut, did that have anything to do with it? It's weird to me. I don't know how many other examples there are of a major Williams theme starting out with barely any presence like this.

Still, it’s a shame that due to changes in Dementor Converge, the "Easter eggs" from Williams broke down. He purposely wrote a motif for horns and winds to be repeated in Watching the Past. In the first scene (Dementor Converge) motif was supposed to sound immediately as soon as Harry was unable to summon Patronus. And in the second scene (Watching the Past) after the repeated sounding of this motive, Harry immediately yells EXPECTO PATRONUM. It turns out that according to the logic of Williams, the "second" Harry summons Patronus right at the moment when the "original" Harry is attacked by dementors. Very interesting. On the first clip - the motive from the first scene, which was cut in the final version. On the second clip - the motif from Watching the Past.

I was expecting it to be Paul Greengrass' upcoming Tom Hanks western. No composer announced yet so I hope Powell gets the gig. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World_(film)

It's not tracking if it's pitch shifted! John Williams was my hero since childhood; he's a genius and I want to pay him my greatest respect! The singular highlight of my professional life!

Ferdinand definitely belongs in the discussion. I wouldn't credit Williams much with Powell's recent developments as a composer...I don't think there's any evidence for that. I feel like if anything the bigger influence would be the Star Wars score study he mentioned doing for Solo. He said it was "devastating him hard" reading that music so closely I think the fact that Powell started doing fewer movies may be one reason his music has gotten seemingly richer in recent years. It seems that he's also become more philosophical about the kinds of movies he chooses to do, giving his music a stronger point of view. For a long time he always struck me as a supreme work-for-hire talent but he's become more interesting lately, it feels like there's more authorship going on. Also the more heartbreaking side of it which can be tasteless to speculate too much, but he did lose his wife to cancer in 2016. It's been noted here before that Williams lost Barbara Ruick in 1974, just before he began a remarkable creative period. Coincidence, maybe.

@TownerFan and @mahler3 have a new audio interview with Mike Matessino about this release (and Far & Away) on the Legacy of John Williams podcast feed! https://thelegacyofjohnwilliams.com/2020/05/12/mike-matessino-far-and-away-the-river/

That's because you neglected to pick up the Special Exstairnded Edition. And two very good selections they are.

Those are two of the finest film scores ever written my friend

Came from here

Let's celebrate another cue from TROS -- "The Old Death Star" (or 5m10, "Landing At?")! What strikes me most about this cue is how dense it is leitmotivically. It reminds me of certain cues from ROTJ where Williams really is approaching the level of thematic density of late Wagner. Not every second on this track is based on some preexisting theme, of course, but the way that he transitions into and out of familiar material, and how he allows musical tension to ebb and flow as a result, is pretty masterful. The first 25 seconds give us this neat, twisted play on the Psalm of the Sith theme (with hints, intentional or not, to the middle section of Across the Stars). That builds to the first climax, pathetically dialed down in the film-mix, when the Death Star II wreckage is revealed. A missed opportunity to revive the original DS motif, I suppose, but what we get instead is quite cool all the same, with that hectic string figure in Ab-minor that suggests a sped-up version of the Imperial March. Then at 0:31 it's back to the ominous mood of the beginning, and a new spin on that Psalm's twisted bass-line, even more redolent to my ears of ATS at this point. A second build-up section follows for Rey's use of the ridiculous Maguffin surveying-equipment, and for it we a quickly intensifying series of musical layers leading inexorably to the most famous villain theme of all time. First a Dotted Triplet Figure in the reeds (recalling an accompanimental gesture to ROTJ, R10P2, among other things). Then we get a swelling set of high polychords that are based on the new Sith Artifact leitmotif, terrifically orchestrated, all over a pounding C pedal. And finally, of course, the massive statement of the Imperial March at 1:04 in gloriously evil C-minor. This iteration of the March is clearly the most impressive statement of that theme in the entire Sequel Trilogy, and a contender for best version since AOTC in my mind. I love how it builds to its own internal climax with the rising trumpets around 1:15, and how Williams opts to support the penultimate chord with an F bass note (rather than the more standard Ab). It's a chance for last send-off for this iconic theme, and Williams milks it for all its worth. I could go on about the rest of the cue/track, but maybe this is enough to spur discussion!

The only good Potter film is Cuaron’s!

GET CARTER ...or do you mean Stu was right.

Fallout sounds like Balfe wrote 10-15 minutes of music which was then looped and edited over the whole film. And then he wrote EPIC CHOIR for the credits.

I hate it always, it ruins the experience. The producers who put narration on soundtrack albums aren't doing so for us, they think it will be received well by joe blow consumer for some reason

I make mockups pretty badly, but I made it anyway . In this post I described in more detail about this music. This is early version of music that sounds in one scene from Prisoner of Azkaban. Here are the real orchestral recordings combined with my mockups.

I particularly hate the narration on the War of the Worlds and Angela's Ashes OSTs. Luckily there are versions of the latter that don't contain it, but in the case of the former, we need an expansion not just for the sake of expanding the score, but also in order to get rid of this Morgan Freeman bullshit.

The Fury. Isn't the LSO-performed OST album one of the finest in Williams' career? It's magical. Karol

Perhaps the energy of the piece isn't the right word in which to describe it. Density, orchestral complexity, etc. When I commented on how stunned I was that an 87-year-old gentleman could write a piece with such energy, it was a commentary not on his physical stamina but on his mental prowess. We have all surely encountered many individuals in their late-80s who have succumbed to a state of severe mental decline that is only natural and to be expected when living to such advanced years. They struggle to string sentences together, have difficulty recalling thoughts, aren't always the best with coming up with new ideas, etc. To write a sprightly piece with this kind of energy and clarity does not, as you say, take immense physical stamina (though I can imagine writing all those notes by hand would be quite taxing). However, it does take a mind capable of deftly formulating and creating new (musical) ideas, while also recalling old ones, and then stringing them together in a way that is logical and coherent. And that is not a mind I normally associate with someone of Williams's age having. Of course, exercising the mind is the best way to prevent one from ever suffering from mental decline in the first place. Once someone retires, you will sometimes begin to observe pretty drastic mental decline in them almost immediately just because of a lack of brain usage. One could argue that Williams with his particular line of work and with him never really ever having been retired puts him in a position atypical to most individuals his age, blah, blah, blah. That he has always continued to use his brain so how could he suffer mental decline, blah, blah, blah. That still makes the achievement of a piece like this no less impressive and it is to the credit of Williams that he has chosen to continue to exercise his brain in challenging new ways such that he is still able to deliver stellar works like this one. And, I mean, have you heard the guy talk? He's 88 and has the mind of a man a third his age. He's truly inspirational in that regard. So, when I marvel that someone of Williams's age is able to provide a piece of this energy, that's more of less my train of thought. Sorry for the poor word choice. I aim to please.

Let’s all tweet him until he releases it. He responds well to Twitter campaigns I hear.

WHERE IS THE VIDEO WHERE IS THE VIDEO

The HARRY POTTER Scores: Book Cover Style Edition. And I also take the opportunity of sharing a set I did a while ago !

Imagine being in Vienna for the JW concert and he whips out “The Hunt” as an encore... with those Vienna horns. God.

Adventure!

Man, color me unimpressed with the Resistance score. Color me unimpressed with the show, for that matter. I watched the whole first season and it wasn't for me.

Of course, it really ties the score together. Could be, unless those pages were already reworked during filming. Lord knows.

The third is the worst looking entry as it uses an ungodly level of orange and teal colour-timing that must have been the in-thing in the mid-to-late 2000s.

I'm glad they used more Window to the Past though, it's a wonderful theme and the true heart of this score.

You used to read Jurassic Shark magazine?

In my opinion he brought much needed consistency. The different directors/fresh approaches thing sounds great in theory, but in practice it just resulted in inconsistency. One good movie (the first), one shitty (the second), one mediocre (the third). Finally starting with Ghost Protocol, McQuarrie has given the series a tone that I love and has stayed there through 3 movies. I'll take 4-5-6 over 1-2-3 any day.

Ivan's Childhood, then Andrei Rublev. Or vice versa.

The recording dates for all three scores are in the LLL booklet. I never claimed to have any date information beyond that

I think it's a really fun movie, very stylish and pretty silly but in an enjoyable earnest way.

Mean Coronation Street.

There are some examples where it's pretty organic, like the BLADE RUNNER OST. But not even that case works for me. I don't want anything to do with the film when I'm listening to a soundtrack. Please remove the listening experience as far away from the film as humanly possible, including sounds and dialogue. If I want to hear dialogue and sound (or hear the music in the film's order), I'll watch the bloody film! Probably the worst example I can think of are cases like MAD MAX 2 or FEAR IS THE KEY, where long setpiece tracks are CONSTANTLY undermined by sound effects. Ridiculous.

A-HA! Finally these two bits click into place.

There should be more. Film score soundtracks are a bit boring without scenes from the movie.

I guess it all depends. Nimoy's epilogue is an absolute MUST. This end title without it, is just weird to me. I wish it was in ALL Star Trek end credits. I like Morgan Freeman's monologue in War of the Worlds. Can't say I'm a huge fan of Belushi in the 1941 OST end credits, but if that was the only end credits we had, I wouldn't mind. As fas as sound effects go, I guess I really only know those to be on the ripped/bootleg tracks of certain cues I have. If I like the cue enough it doesn't bother me. I'm sure there are some on the official Star Trek releases I have (TMP 3CD, Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock 2CD and Star Trek 2009 2CD), but I can't think of any cues off the top of my head on those releases that would contain special effects.

Haha well it’s maybe due to overexposure since I’ve heard them frequently but if they’re playing standard rep (i.e. Strauss, Mahler) with a conductor that they like, they’re absolutely amazing. But if not, they can sound like they don’t give a shit about what’s going on. It’s really fascinating how they’ll just drop the ball after deciding they don’t like the conductor. The audience will give a standing ovation regardless! Anyways, their winds and brass are truly some of the best. Only their string section is objectively lacking compared to the Berlin Phil. There’s definitely a difference in quality there.

No one cares about Kramers output.

Rebecca Ferguson Lorne Balfe So it was just pure bullshit that the director wanted a unique expression for each MI film and therefore had to change the main crew.

There is one

Powell always was a great composer, but he also managed to improve himself since 2014 with HTTYD 2. His last 3 scores, Solo, The Hidden World and Call of the Wild, are all stunning. JW mentoring him was really great for him to evolve as a composer. To be fair with Giacchino, I do think he also managed to improve himself over the last few years. Fallen Kingdom is a more sophisticated score than the first JW, and the same for Far from Home and Homecoming.

I Stravinsky lifts can be a bit distracting, but I too found this to be a very intriguing score. He does well in adapting existing works, let's say, in the vein of what he also did with L'Ours

So if you really like just 2/3 of an album, you won't buy it?

Hello. Recently, I found interesting details in the POA score, in particular, the scene with Harry's unsuccessful call of a patronus on the lake (6M5AN First Frozen Lake). The first version of this music (which is in the score) has several references to the scene where Harry and Hermione are watching this (7M4). I also found that the music at the moment when Harry sees someone summoning the Patronus in the score looks a little different than "The Patronus Power" (track on LLR-disc) - the version on the disk is expanded (several measures are repeated and a new chorus chord is added at the end). As a result, I decided to make a list of differences and references: First Version 1) A choral episode overlapping on top of the next part (track "The Dementor Circle" on LLR-disc) →Refernce in 7M4: (given on the track "Watching the Past (Alternate)" on LLR-disc) 0:08-0:15 and 0:26-0:39 2) partial repetition of 2M4 (left in the final version) →Refernce in 7M4: 0:40-0:56 3) Silent suspense-part - Harry tries to call the patronus several times (the scene is cut from the film and from music) 4.1) action-part - the first half (it was cut in final version) →Refernce in 7M4: the horns motif and wind passage are repeated - 1:06-1:10 (see pictures in spoiler below) 4.2) action-part - the second half (left in the final version) 5) the quiet part (completely replaced in the final version,in this version it sounds more intense) 6) Harry sees someone's patronus (old version of "The Patronus Power") 7) The final part (completely replaced in the final version) Second Version An insert with an expanded version of the 6th part is added - several measures are repeated and the last chorus chord is added. It also seems that the high tremolo for violins and passages for clarinets have been removed, the music sounds more clearly and loudly (the nuance mezzopiano is indicated in the score, but the music sounds louder on the recording). Third Version (sounds in the movie) 1) The choral episode is replaced by one long note by the choir (not on the disc) 2) The part with partial repetition of 2M4 is completely saved (0:00-0:47 on the track "The Dementors Converge (Film Version)") 3) cut out, only the first measure with a long note of violins is left (0:47-0:49) 4.1) cut out 4.2) saved, but removed the chimes (0:50-1:02) +4.3) a new part with dramatic choir chords (1:02-1:21) was added to the free space 5) new material, this version at the beginning sounds like it is the end of the scene)) (1:21-1:49) 6) Patronus, taken material from 7M4 - it was originally supposed that this music should have sounded when Harry himself summons him in the second scene. But small changes were made - more pathos choral chords and a faster tempo (1:49-2:25) 7) the final part is also completely replaced. However, in the end, upward synth sounds are saved, but in a different tonality (2:25-end). UPD: I made a mockup of the first version (here). I hope that what I wrote will be more clear now.

I think my favorite bit of the cue is the exposed woodwind and horn writing where Williams intertwines the themes for Rey and the Resistance. It's a terrifically effective use of two themes I don't think he had let play together before. When I saw the film, though, my ears perked up the most at the ostinato pointed out by @Marian Schedenig, and I was struck by how fluidly Williams built out from that figure to drive the cue to a resolution. The trumpet figures near the end remind me a little of how he accompanied the very first statements of Kylo Ren's theme way back in Attack on the Jakku Village. It's all these little things that make me want to hear everything he wrote for this installment (and the rest of the sequel trilogy).

Unlike Intrada and LLL (and other specialty labels), Varese does not offer retailers a discount on the purchase of their CDs, so Screen Archives has to buy them at the retail price and then mark them up for resale.

Bought two brand new copies of The Post, on vinyl, for less than 10 Euros each. I'm planning to gift them to people who are into such weird things. Unfortunately, the larger LP cover doesn't have more stairs than the CD release.