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John Williams on retirement

Well then it's almost certain that the next expansion is going to be a 23-disc box set released by Walt Disney Records.

I'm excited to hear some more variations on this theme. "J.J. Abrams is many things....He's a director, a master of lens flares, lover of the 'mystery box'...one thing he isn't, is a man who can give me a locked picture to score to."

Video 8 [CnSfGe_sHrh].mp4

THIS is what John Williams sounds like. Remember when that one guy thought the music in the Dial of Destiny trailer might have actually been Williams? lol

It would affect None But The Brave and that's it as far as Williams is concerned (plus Daddy's Gone A-Hunting I guess if WB truly inherited it from National Geographic Pictuers, which was never clear)

I love: "A day without music is a mistake."

Should we pitch in together and buy them? Specialty labels can do their releases for free if they use producers and artists we approve of.

New episode! https://thelegacyofjohnwilliams.com/2023/01/12/richard-kaufman-talk/

I'm sure this has been discussed over the years, but thought a separate topic concerning any film, and even tv shows that are either make or break on a single scene that fundamentally changes an entire story for the better or worse. The obvious is Predator. The inclusion of the spaceship in the opening is a terrible idea in my opinion. It immediately tells you there's an alien, instead of discovering that along with the characters. Not knowing what the hell is hunting them is far more powerful, but we already know it's an alien, and the removal of that scene would improve the film for me. Also, I was watching Aliens, which in fact made me consider this subject. In the longer cut, we see Newt's family and her reacting to the facehugger. This scene was smartly cut from the standard edition by Cameron, because the entire discovery of Newt being alone and her then opening up to Ripley about her family, is fundamental to the suspense and character of her story. Also not seeing any of the colonists makes it far more creepy and shocking as we see the base for the first time in ruins. We are seeing it through the characters eyes for the first time, instead of already knowing what it all looks like and exactly what happened to them. By seeing Newt early on before the characters meet her, we might be expecting her to be alive. Another huge scene in the extended cut is of Ripley finding out her daughter is dead after Ripley spent 57 years in cryo. This scene not being in the standard edition is the opposite of the Newt scene, as this is a mistake from Cameron. The entire story of Ripley's character in Aliens (outside of her overcoming her fear) is about motherhood. The audience knowing her daughter is dead makes her connection to Newt even more powerful and gives it a larger meaning. And an honourable mention to the cut scene of the turrets running out of ammo in the hallways. That is just utterly terrifying and badass. Anyway, are there any other examples of this that anyone can think of, where a single scene can change an entire film for the better or worse.

No. https://warmbutter.com/albums/

Just about to post that interview haha. Some great new information; like how he has actually written a longer Songchord to include the story of the entire Sully family, not just Neteyam and Kiri that we hear in the current one.

Rodzinski really knocked the last two episodes’ scores out of the park!

Cookies... they are so many things, nice breakfast, wonderful dessert but they are also something very difficult to say no to.

Nothing is known at all. MM said on Maurizio's podcast that he had 5 albums where the audio work was already and and approved, that at the time he expected to all release that year (2022). Then, on a later episode, he said that 2 of those 5 were delayed into the next year (2023), and only 3 would come out that year. Those ended up being Presumed Innocent, SpaceCamp, and Amistad. Nothing has been said anywhere about when those remaining two - or any others that have been approved since those comments were made - could release. And no comments were ever made about what label they are coming from.

Here's another one: "Ernest [Fleischmann] was a man of many things but one thing he was not was a man you could say no to." GRAMOPHONE Presents Film Music 2022, page 11

The man's got his shtick and he's shticking to it.

The big franchises are hell, in that there's usually no 'definitive' cover art, taking the different versions into account. As you say, very often the fan ones are better than the official ones. I'll never know the mindset of whoever thought the JP Dominion cover was acceptable, given all of the artwork at their disposal. I also use Spotify as a fallback if all else fails - 90% of the time their art is fine and 640 is perfectly acceptable for most cases. The only metadata I'm bothered about, apart from the standard (album, artist, track name) is album artist because that's important to getting albums to show correctly in PowerAmp, and I had to do a lot of retagging when I started using that app.

JW has really fallen in love with this phrasing: The composer said of the filmmaker: “Steven is a lot of things. He’s a director, he’s a producer, he’s a studio head, he’s a writer, he’s a philanthropist, he’s an educator. One thing he isn’t is a man you can say 'no' to.”

"Kathleen Kennedy is many things"

The main thing this is making me think is that he was probably hinting at the franchise stuff more than anything with that original quote. Spielberg has always been efficient with Williams's time. I do hope this makes Spielberg prioritize projects that Williams would be most interested in.

Just a reminder that Warner Music Group separated out of WB back in 2004 and was never a part of Warner Discovery; This would be a sale of the music rights that WB has themselves, so basically albums that came out on WaterTower Records

Nice write-up on the event I think him adding "I'll stick around for awhile" makes it pretty clear that he's in. I guess it would just depend mostly if Spielberg wants to do Ready Player Two. And it is interesting that Spielberg was visibly surprised, so it must have been seriously discussed and agreed between them that Williams would bow out. Do the western, Steven.

With all the positive talk and tweeting about Of Grit and Glory, which came out of the clear blue sky to remind us that JW still grabs the public imagination even when the subject has nothing to do with film, I'm further reminded there isn't another person alive whose impact on society has been as diverse and pervasive as Williams. For any musician, laying claim to four Olympic themes across 18 years, music for the national news and nationally televised football, themes for Amblin and Dreamworks, and leading the Boston Pops for 13 years would be enough accomplishment for a successful career and enough to make them a household name. For any composer to write over a dozen concertos and have a few of them enter the repertoire in their lifetime would be an amazing achievement in and of itself. Any person who could claim to have done both would be a bona fide icon. So that's JW in a nutshell: a beloved musical icon even if he'd never written a bar of music for film. It blows my mind.

Someone should make a C&C release of all the versions.

Yet another version of the "all-dead anecdote"...

Yes, John Williams is a pretty good composer. I like most of his music.

I'd be embarrassed to tell anyone the amount of Star Trek I ordered from La-La Land recently.

Film nerd? How DARE you, sir! *Remembers the nature of this forum* Oh, hang on ...

https://twitter.com/am_cinematheque/status/1613735723840208897?s=46&t=CJvyocqTMadvklJtEFZNDg Williams sharing a new quote😜

Genesis Announces Massive Box Set of BBC Recordings

La-La Land Records, StudioCanal and Sony Classical celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the 1992 big-screen biographical drama CHAPLIN with a newly remastered, deluxe presentation of the film’s original motion picture score by legendary composer John Barry. Barry’s notable and elegant orchestral score, considered one of late composer’s last great works for the cinema, is an integral part of this creative and thoughtful chronicling of the career of the great Charlie Chaplin starring Robert Downey, Jr. and directed by Richard Attenborough. Romantic, dramatic, comedic and more, Barry’s diverse and thematically rich original score, recorded at Abbey Road with the English Chamber Orchestra, also interpolates a number of Chaplin’s own music compositions such as “Smile” and his scores to CITY LIGHTS and LIMELIGHT. Produced by Neil S. Bulk and mastered by Doug Schwartz, this special limited edition CD presentation is expanded with previously unreleased material and includes exclusive liner notes by journalist/author Jon Burlingame. This release is limited to 3000 units and features art design by Scott Saslow. TRACK LISTING: 1. Chaplin-Main Theme 3:08 2. Hannah’s Hope† / Workhouse Chase / Mudflats 3:00 3. To The Asylum :57 4. Charlie On Riverbank 1:10 5. Charlie Proposes 3:01 6. Charlie Goes To The U.S. 2:57 7. In The Cutting Room 2:15 8. Discovering The Tramp / The Wedding Chase 4:03 9. Funny With A Hose / This Is My Work 1:26 10. News Of Hetty 1:01 11. Chaplin’s Studio Opening 1:58 12. The Roll Dance 2:34 13. To Salt Lake City 1:07 14. Salt Lake City Episode* 2:11 15. Tea For Four† 1:14 16. Hetty’s Dead / Smile** 2:43 17. Remembering Hetty 2:58 18. I Had No Home :31 19. From London To L.A. 3:21 20. The Hungry People / Smile** 1:50 21. Farewell Sweet Prince** 1:25 22. Joan Out Of Control :58 23. Joan Barry Trouble / Oona Arrives 2:15 24. Premiere Fanfare :43 25. It’s All Over / Guilty 1:20 26. Theme From “Limelight”* :48 27. They’ve Thrown You Out 1:14 28. Madness, Charlie? 1:00 29. Smile** 2:05 30. The Roll Dance 1:48 31. Chaplin-Main Theme / Smile* 4:47 32. Smile** 3:37 TOTAL SCORE TIME 66:25 ORIGINAL ALBUM SUITES 33. Early Days In London† 4:18 34. To California / The Cutting Room 3:44 35. News Of Hetty’s Death / Smile** 3:43 TOTAL SUITES TIME 11:48 TOTAL ALBUM TIME 78:13 *Composed by Charles Chaplin **Contains “Smile” composed by Charles Chaplin † Contains “The Honeysuckle and the Bee” by William Penn and Albert H. Fitz This is a CD format release. I don’t know much about this but I assume the smile piece is from Chaplan’s original films and not made for this film just adapted by Barry?

I definitely prefer the Aliens extended cut, but I hate the Hadley's Hope scene w/Newt's family. I think it runs like 17 minutes, totally kills the pacing and undermines the suspense when the Marines finally reach LV-426. It's for this reason that Aliens is the only "fan edit" I've done myself, in which I extricated that entire bit. If you listen to the Alien's director's commentary, Cameron says he didn't want to cut the scene, but did so at the urging of his wife (who was an uncredited editor) because the movie was running long.

I think my partner will be stocking up for my birthdays for the next few years…

The action scoring is just getting better for me with every listen. Like this piece for example - It has a very catchy, rhythmic repeating phrase on strings that drives the piece, with accompanying percussion, and then it'll just explode into the most glorious heroic version of the Family Theme at 1:50. And we even get another couple of Family Theme variations later at 2:37 in a defeated way, and finally again at 3:08 as it tries to hold on, but the full theme can't make it. Brilliant musical storytelling.

I love this cue! The avatar sequel scores are definitively some of my most anticipated scores in the coming years!

seems promising

Not sure about themes just by Rodzinski. I do believe the grunting vocals in A Fine Welcome are a theme the Trolls. And in the final episode The Gale/Crone/Wyrm theme is more prominent in the episode than on album. There is a really cool statement of it that should be in "Help Arrives", but about a minute of the cue is not on album. And I think The Bone Reavers have more of a sound, than really a theme. I do have to hand it to Rodzinski for the amount of different emotions he is able to get oht of the main theme. There are some terrific heroic, somber, heartbreaking & kind of menacing version of the theme in Ep. 6-8. And my favourite Horner quote might be at the end of "Loyal". It's really wonderful

Fantastic news! I've actually been Googling "Spielberg's next project" for a couple of days now trying to theorize. When Williams mentioned "a graphic novel" at the Milan concert, I Googled that, too, but the only thing that came up was Maus (probably because the author's last name resembles Spielberg). That got me thinking, could Spielberg return to animation for a Holocaust story with mice? As it turns out, though, apparently the author of Maus had some beef with the Beard over An American Tail, so maybe that's a pipe dream. And I think JW already spoke his definitive musical piece on that chapter of history. Bring on the Western indeed! Also, I can't wait for his next Star Wars musical rescue mission. My prediction: some auteur hires Hildur Guðnadóttir for a streaming series, and Kathy Kennedy has to make another 3 AM phone call.

@mahler3 I remember it well from last year! Excited to listen back and re-listen to the wonderful concert too! Hope there are more similar events in the near future!

The Crying Game

Also known as the "From Dusk 'Til Dawn" award.

I've heard some convincing mockups of Synchron Brass in the JW sound.

Well, I'd love to listen to complete and restored Star Wars music, unfortunately it's not available either