Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 18/10/21 in all areas

  1. After a few days in which I first had to realized what really happened, I want to say that the Berlin concerts were an incredible experience to me. I was there on thursday and saturday... Just the moment when John Williams himself entered the stage was overwhelming! The orchestra was fantastic and the interaction between the musicians and the conductor was so enjoyable, you really felt how much fun everyone was having on stage, and that carried over to the audience as well. By the way, the audience was phenomenal! So much euphoria and respect shown to John Williams, you could really see how grateful he was about it. One of the coolest moments was, when he announced he would be composing new Indiana Jones music in a week or two, and the audience flipped out and making him smile about it. The program was great too! One of my highlights was the Olympic Fanfare (which I haven't been able to get out of my head since this weekend) - When the brass section started, I thought "Wow! What a sound!" - but when the basses, timpani, and the rest of the orchestra joined in shortly after with this great, deep chord, I was completely overwhelmed. So John Williams captivated me from the very start! The program was full of highlights from Close Encounters, Harry's Wondrous World, Marion's Theme or Throne Room & Finale, but I actually liked every piece! And as the absolute top of the cake, they even played Theme from Jurassic Park, my absolute favorite soundtrack since my childhood, so that was something very special and meant a lot to me! When he announced it as "...the last 5 minutes of the movie" my first thought was "Oh my god, are they really playing T-Rex Rescue & Finale now? The 14 minute standing ovations at the end of saturday's concert was somehow the perfect ending to an unforgettable weekend, and I'm so grateful to have been there, and happy for all the other fans who had the same experience. Hopefully we will see each other again soon, to the next magical journey...
    11 points
  2. I was hanging with the horn section after the Saturday concert. First horn Chris said that Johnny came to him and said that nothing wrong with his playing but John was too tired to conduct Leia's theme as an encore!!
    10 points
  3. One weird thing I noticed...is that with the performance of "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra", Williams unknowningly may have been the 1st composer to perform Nazi music in the open in germany since the end of WWII... (Nazi motif from Last Crusade)
    9 points
  4. By popular demand, a music-only version. Enjoy!
    8 points
  5. I've also had that post-concert depression after Vienna, and I do have it now after Berlin. Luckily, La Scala next year gives me another John Williams experience to look forward to, so it's not that bad.
    6 points
  6. And luckily the performance on Thursday was perfect, wasn't it? So that will hopefully make a nice bonus track on the upcoming release! Although the sun has come out here in Germany, I am also finding it hard to get back into everyday life. It seems I haven't quite grasped what has actually happened. I am very grateful but, at the same time, I feel a little melancholic that this life-time dream is over.
    6 points
  7. I am pretty sure it is delayed due to the still-lukewarm box office numbers of current releases, and Disney having a LOT of properties, including Indiana Jones, that they would rather space out to get as much money out of as possible. Why else would they also space out all of their upcoming Marvel properties after this year ends? I don't see them extending shooting schedules (apart from the common reshoots) or any other aspect of their productions at this point. Doing that costs money to reschedule people, and people may not be available again at a later date which would be a disaster if they were already in the middle of working on it. In a sort of similar fashion, this happened with Jurassic World: Dominion. The film is done, it's already scored. It is just sitting and waiting for a better release date.
    5 points
  8. Leia's Theme as the first encore on Thursday was the first piece he played after that autograph hunter ran after him as he was leaving the stage and was removed by security. The very first thing Williams said when he returned to the podium was "Here's the problem..." For a second, I thought he was going to talk about the problem with autograph hunters, but he actually started talking about the problem of writing a "love theme" for Luke and Leia in A New Hope who subsequently turned out to be siblings.
    5 points
  9. Love how he pronounces it as "Hed-vig's" theme when introducing "Hedwig's Theme" -- proper German consonants!
    5 points
  10. Just wanted to add a few notes for the truly nerdy: This version uses the cue Williams wrote for the original opening, 1M2 Finn Wakes Up, but we don’t yet know if it was ever recorded. The deleted scene doesn’t use it, but there’s a couple deleted TFA scenes that definitely had music recorded, but aren’t presented with it. 1M2A is the untitled cue that provides the score for the revised opening. There’s also a 1M2A Fix titled Son of Starry Night with a different version of the music immediately following the crawl, but it wasn’t used and it’s unknown if it was recorded. I don’t know if @crumbs referenced it, but the novelization exactly matches this ordering of events, which must have been what Williams scored before things were shuffled around. The ending is a bit of a mystery. 1M8 We Lose Girl Ace, the final cue here, actually ends with a short note and an overlap indication, with the note that we “cut back to battle” here. Did the battle originally continue even longer? Judging from the spectrograph, the long final note appears to have grafted on for the album, and the film instead uses tracked music here and for the short Snoke scene that follows. What he intended to overlap here, and if it was ever written, is unknown. 1M9 is Revisiting Snoke, and it certainly doesn’t work to overlap those two. There’s a tiny bit of known music missing from the leak, so I guess it’s possible there’s a 1M8A or something that’s missing, but I thought it was odd.
    5 points
  11. Indeed!! There were also many other musicians of Orchestra hanging there in the street bar outside of the Philharmonie and they all praised John as a musician and also as a human beeing, they had a wonderful week together!!
    4 points
  12. One of the very best Hollywood scores of the 1930s!
    3 points
  13. First encore on Saturday filmed from just underneath the ceiling. E.T. Flying Theme: https://youtu.be/mCK3UtBVmU4
    3 points
  14. Sat down and watched this movie on TCM over the weekend for the first time in its entirety. I really enjoyed it, and it inspired me to pull out the 3-cd set and also give it another listen. The story of the production is fascinating, with years of delays and re-castings, and although the result was a big flop, John Williams produced some absolutely beautiful orchestrations. There aren't many pure score tracks, but among those, "Pompeii" and "Very Pleased" are truly wonderful.
    3 points
  15. Just some personal thoughts… Vienna was the first European show after the disappointment in London. For me it was a combination of the venue, the snow that day, the fact that the shows were held in the morning (the odd time just gave it some extra) and the possibility that these could’ve been his first and last shows in Europe after all this time…. It was all kind of magical in a sense.
    3 points
  16. Thank you for having us all. I spent the days seeing the famous sights - Reichstag, Checkpoint Charlie, East Side Gallery, Brandenburg Gate - places I’ve known all my life, with momentous events happening there IN my life. A humbling experience indeed. And dare I say - a counterpoint to the enormous goodwill and joy in the Philharmonie and Lindenbräu in the evenings! A momentous trip.
    3 points
  17. Yes Sarah was so happy to play with John and said her lips are gone!! The sixth horn is from the academy, played with her in Helsinki PO last week where she said he might be playing with John next week. I told her 'I hate you'
    3 points
  18. JW is a real musicians' conductor - plenty of other conductors wouldn't hesitate to drop a piece for personal reasons without also thinking to put the soloist's mind at rest on the 'was it something I did?' front. Reason no. 94 he's the Master. Mark
    3 points
  19. I didn't hear many mistakes in the saturday concert. On friday the horns and trumpets were more nervous. Obviously saturday was the better concert from a playing perspective. There were no major errors. Some timing issues from the percussions e.g. that the beginnings or some endings were not together with the other sections. But overall a top notch performance and much better than the Boston Pops.
    3 points
  20. Hi! Some of you may know that Eddie Karam was Williams's trusty orchestrator for a long time. Karam gave a talk in 2013 for The Academy of Scoring Arts where he discussed his life in music, his work with various composers (Williams, Mandel, Horner, etc.), and gave some very funny anecdotes. I don't think a thread about this video has been made before, so here are the comments he made regarding Williams. Meeting John Williams: Orchestrating Williams's music: Dividing work between himself and Conrad Pope: "Crystal Skull" story
    2 points
  21. Of the Star Wars sequels, The Last Jedi proved the most faithful to John Williams' intended score, with one major exception: the opening Escape sequence. After Williams recorded the score's first 8 cues, Rian Johnson restructured the entire sequence, forcing deep music edits to match the revised opening. Sadly Williams followed suit on his OST, presenting a heavily truncated suite of these cues in Main Title and Escape. Now, with the aid of sheet music and mockups, I've reconstructed the film's opening sequence, reintegrating deleted footage where available, and restored Williams' complete score to its intended glory. In my opinion, the best continuous stretch of film scoring in the trilogy. Enjoy! Williams' ability to ratchet up musical tension is simply unrivaled, paired with a climactic release to make the hair on your neck stand up. A shame neither the film nor soundtrack presented Williams' complete intended score; this had every potential of being the greatest opening track of any Star Wars soundtrack, period. Alas, the wait continues for expanded releases that showcase the Maestro's complete musical vision. Special shout out to @BrotherSound and another anonymous user for their help!
    2 points
  22. Maybe he was very relaxed and talkative because he smoked a huge amount of weed before the concerts!!
    2 points
  23. Does the video not work for anyone else? Man, it's frustrating; I keep seeing members posting .MOV video links, but none of them are working for me.
    2 points
  24. I think the Suite itself has been around since the 90s, but for some reason, Williams has never recorded it. This will the be the first, if released. Incidentally, for any signature edition questions, search FSO on Youtube--they have done almost all of them:
    2 points
  25. John Williams - Dracula (Varese Deluxe Edition main program) Hey, this score is pretty cool! It fit the spook-tober feel. I never noticed before, that he was already doing in this score some of the dramatic stuff he'd later do in the Star Wars prequels Ludwig Goransson - The Mandalorian (Season 1 highlights outlined above) Love it! Basil Poledouris - Starship Troopers (Varese Deluxe Edition main program) I don't think I'll ever get tired of listening to this great score!
    2 points
  26. What a week, what a concert! Many of you guys have already shared the dearest moments of your experience and I don’t think I can add anything different. I feel very privileged to experience the Towner live, in my town 😀 I attended to the Thursday concert and what an amazing experience it was. JW looked quite good and conducted with dedication. He was very involved and was in constant communication with the orchestra through gestures. The orchestra was fantastic! So many talented young players, capturing the sound of Berlin Phil nonetheless. I found some pieces to be particularly lyrical due to the soft and virtuosic strings, which makes me look forward to getting my hands on a potentially upcoming album. Many of you guys have commented on some principal players being missing and although I would’ve liked having all of them playing for JW, the orchestra was still just as good and vibrant. I definitely don’t think those players were absent because they didn’t wanna play under JW. Concerts like these are indeed great chances for young players to gain experience, while playing with their teachers/supervisors together. Besides, which is rather what I assume, that sometimes musicians receive their contracts a couple of seasons in advance and JW’s Berlin visit was frankly quite short noticed so they may have had other plans already. I’ll definitely try to be in La Scala next year and this time I’d be happy to meet some of you fellow JW-Fans. PS: I coincidentally captured the moment with the autograph hunter 😁 Seemed like a young, clueless guy, who may have recklessly counted on JW’s good nature. IMG_6704.MOV
    2 points
  27. Hey, I found a way for DG to milk this occasion: they can release all three concerts!
    2 points
  28. JW mentioned on Thursday that the movie will be out by next Summer so either he wasn't aware of this date change or the decision was only made in the last few days.
    2 points
  29. Yes, looked very much as if these concerts were also recorded - the automated cameras were moving and special mikes were placed in front of the cello for the elegy... Except for the timpani flub in JP...
    2 points
  30. Welcome, fellow Norwegian. We're slowly, but surely, taking over this place.
    2 points
  31. Fun piece of trivia caused by the delay: both Star Wars and Indiana Jones will now have the exact same interval between their first and last scores: 42 years! (1977-2019 and 1981-2023 respectively).
    2 points
  32. I finally got home... i dont know how to write my experience...because i'm not a lenghty or detailed writer.... It was just amazing to be in the same room as john Williams, finally, and listeing to a great selection of his works. The sound of the venue was great, you could hear every detail. And even being in block B i could really see Williams very near, the arrangements of the seats is very good. I have one question though. I found some of the transitions between the different parts of some pieces to be weird. Like part ends - micro silence - next part begins. I think it may have been a side effect of the perfect sound and performance, and with other performers-venue the echo or reberb from the first part would continue to overlap untill the nex part started being played... i dont know if i explain myself. I think it was specially noticeable in far and away if you want to check what i mean. The best thing was listening Jurassic Park, the score that started it all for me The only downside was not being able to meet the great people i have been talking to for decades here, either for some of them not being there and because i couldn't hang out before of after the concert anyway .
    2 points
  33. The score - when presented like this - is absolutely sublime and really ups my estimation of TLJ's music, so thank YOU! And darn directors and their unmusical alterations to their pictures
    2 points
  34. I love seeing emotional reactions like this to seeing the concerts. I just get tetchy when I see others feel the need to put down great artists like Gustavo Dudamel or the Boston Pops to give what is ultimately their own emotional reaction a false veneer of objective aesthetic judgment.
    2 points
  35. Jay

    Music Box Records

    https://www.facebook.com/MusicBoxRec/posts/6371932906182634
    2 points
  36. I made this really satisfying playlist a while back, it's basically the 1 big highlight set-piece track from each episode (except episode 8 where I included a bunch of tracks because they're all so good lol), bookended with the main theme tracks 1-09 The Mandalorian (3:18) 1-04 HammerTime (2:17) 2-02 Jawas Attack (3:46) 3-06 Mando Rescue (2:14) 4-04 Training the Plebs (3:10) 5-04 Speederbikes (1:21) 6-11 Mando's Back (7:15) 7-07 The Arrival (3:16) 8-04 A Thousand Tears (4:06) 8-05 Nurse and Protect (3:59) 8-09 Sacrifice (3:29) 8-10 Mando Flies (2:04) 8-11 The Baby (3:20) 7-08 The Mandalorian (Orchestral Version) (2:20) TOTAL TIME - 45:55 Check it out!
    2 points
  37. In the 1990's, you didn't have embedded parts. So you had to create a full score that the conductor, composer, and engineers would use and a score for parts only that would be used to create the parts. Now the full score used by the conductor can be used to extract the parts, you still have to do some manipulation but you don't need multiple versions which can get out of sync due to late edits...a real disaster in scoring sessions. Imagine a player playing something in bar 41 but the conductor's score has that removed or given at a different spot, those types of errors are extremely costly and embarrassing as the music prep has to determine which is the right one and maybe look through versions to determine. Additionally, old versions of Finale had a fatal flaw that they did not export to other versions which meant you had to get a new version each time they released a new version (yearly). Otherwise Finale 2006 wouldn't be able to load or save Finale 2004 so you had to have both. Over the years, this became a real mess and it was mind boggling why they did that other than they had little competition and could force an upgrade on their customers. The benefit of Finale in the pro music prep shops came in keyboard shortcuts that could be tied into complex macros. They would produce shareable shortcuts that everyone on the team would have access to such as page formatting, the amount of white space around a staff, fixing collisions with words and notes, etc. All these things were painstaking and still time consuming but now are much faster to do. The other huge time saver comes with editability. If you produce a score on paper, it's impossible to "insert a measure" in the middle. And sometimes you get these requests - very common in the composition phase but always happen late in complex scores too. Now, there is more competition with Sibelius and Dorico that are faster and easier but don't have the richness of keystroke commands that Finale has.
    2 points
  38. Yes, La Scala is a real perspective, and also imagining John Williams returning home with a suitcase full of German cookies, fond memories of Berlin and an appetite to pick-up pencil and paper for Indy 5 helps against this post-concert depression.
    2 points
  39. Geez, i live in Berlin and didn't even bother to attend because of all these musty old Williams standards, regardless of which musty institution performs them. Or, to put it less inflammatory, i had the good sense to leave tickets for those in need.
    2 points
  40. Somebody had to liven the place up
    2 points
  41. The score in question most likely was 'A Far Off Place', a score known to be heavily ghostwritten and featuring surprisingly sophisticated scoring for what basically is a kid's adventure movie. Ironically it's much more interesting due to different ghostwriters working on it than many scores Horner orchestrated on his own (starting with Braveheart). Rule of thumb: emotional pieces and affecting tunes Horner did himself, suspense, action and tissue stuff he farmed out, because he was more interested in lifting the emotion. So you can keep all the sweet stuff from AFOP.
    2 points
  42. None of us are in our glory days any more - my aching knees will testify to that after pounding the streets of Berlin!
    2 points
  43. And now back to work in the home office here in overcast London. How many unread emails, how many tasks to do — take me back to Grimm’s, Phiharmonie and Lindenbräu…
    2 points
  44. The tempi were very good. It seems like someone told Johnny that in Vienna it was a bit too slow. Jurassic Park on friday was the fastest I've ever heard it perform.
    2 points
  45. The Vienna performances sounded passionate and inspired to me, probably by the event that it all was. I personally thought it brought out the best in everyone involved. The mistakes sounded very sincere, if that makes any sense. I love that concert. These Berlin performances seem much more tame. They are not as generic as the LA Phil. but still more restrained. I also personally hear a lot more errors. They really seemed to lean into the errors in Vienna (sort of the general sense of 'owning it' that I hear going on.) The errors in Berlin sound much more hesitant to my ears, therefore they stick out more to me. I also think anyone who complained about tempos in Vienna should be doing so even more now. I personally don't mind a stately take of anything, we always have the original. I just find it surprising that it isn't getting the hate the Vienna performance received. This is overall feelings. That's very vibe-y and generalized. There are plenty of orchestral flourishes and touches that really shine. This is still a world-class orchestra. There are some very neat trumpet lines in the middle of Harry's Wondrous World. Nimbus 2000 comes across great, if maybe a little clinical; the soloists really getting a chance to shine in that one. The Adventures of Han is a stand-out with that orchestra at that tempo as well. Probably the highlight of the whole evening. Although, and I am not trying to be cynical, there aren't many performances to compare it to. I am obviously going to continue to listen and form more opinions over time. I am sure the album release will improve my estimation of the concert since I have only had the pleasure of streaming one evening. With mastering and switching between nights, a lot of these more lethargic moments may be livened up. Especially by an opening night I haven't heard. So far, it's not Vienna but it's alright.
    2 points
  46. Final part of Throne Room. I'm still in shock... IMG_0812.mp4
    2 points
  47. This is just the best. Thank you so much Crumbs, for all your work restoring this part of a score that I really love. (And seeing this again, my god how I wished Johnson had done IX as well. But this isn't the right place to discuss that, I know)
    2 points
  48. Here's my only half-usable photo of yesterday's concert (my phone's camera is lousy, and I didn't dare take out my DSLR):
    2 points
  49. I'm not sure if this thread is still active anymore, but for anyone who's active and still interested in James Newton Howard's scores for the Fantastic Beasts series, I started a site analysing the scores, hopefully as a more definitive catalogue of all the themes, as well as cue analyses and a quote section! Fantastic Scores and Where to Find Them
    2 points
  50. After the concert, at the hotel: "Are they still clapping?"
    2 points
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.