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Couldn't have said it better myself; you raise a point which I've been trying to find the words to express lately. It feels like in the 20th century classical music hit a fork in the road (Mahler was one of the key figures to introduce said fork) and went two separate ways: the people who wholly embraced atonality as the ONLY next step for music to go in, and the people who wanted to continue the Romantic tradition (while still dabbling in newer techniques and using atonality like a light seasoning to be employed for great effect/affect). Some examples of the former would be the Mahler pupils and acolytes (Berg, Webern, Schoenberg etc.), and the latter would be figures such as Richard Strauss (post-Mahler's death), Korngold, heck even Sibelius in Finland. It seems like some people were so fascinated by the 12-tone-system that they thought tonality must be done away with entirely, whereas others thought it was an interesting concept and yet still saw value in making music that "sounds good". But in addition to his well-timed use of atonality in otherwise tonal music, Williams is also an interesting figure to me because, like Rachmaninoff in his later years (Piano Concerto No. 4 for instance), he was influenced by jazz in addition to his traditional classical upbringing. The thing that really makes Williams stand out from a lot of other composers, imo, and which makes him feel like this logical "next step" you speak of, is his perfect synthesis of the jazz and classical harmonies and styles. Atonality went away from tonality, but jazz delved further into tonality, venturing into uncharted areas and introducing new ideas of harmonization. It'd be like if Beethoven or Brahms discovered a bunch of new chords, and continued to write melodic, tonally logical music—but now harmonized with a bunch of major 7th chords underneath. Basically what it boils down to is, there was still a wealth of stuff to be explored and accomplished within the tonal system at the time that the 12-tone fanatics jumped ship—which is why someone like Williams feels like a logical "next step"...

I've heard Williams gloats about having Story of a Woman to himself all the time at galas!

I'm sure some of y'all have seen this before, but here's John being interviewed by the late Andre Previn in 1988. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj4sRhY-feY

My father bought this album back on the day. It was probably what introduced me to the music of John Williams.

First JW album I bought <3 Oh, the memories! Used almost every track for my home made movies back in the early 2000s

In any case - this will be a quality memento of this incredible event we were part of. <3 Still proud that we managed to let the Maestro know in no uncertain terms how welcome he was! :-D

He doesn't have as many fart trombones in his scores as Hans Zimmer.

Some breaking news about the recording from Anne-Sophie Mutters website: https://www.anne-sophie-mutter.de/en/news/john-williams-und-anne-sophie-mutter-in-wien/ The essentials: It‘s going to be on ServusTV (Austrian TV) in the spring, DG is going to release a CD later in 2020. A film recording will also be distributed by DG. A conversation between ASM and JW will also be shown in the TV broadcast.

Just finished the interview, it's really great. Because of their personal history, Previn feels freer to really push Williams, to try and break through the shield of modesty, so he gets more novel reactions/answers than most interviewers.

@Yavar Moradi I was already familiar with Wintory's excellent demo for Discovery. Obviously, they did not go in that direction, tonally, unfortunately. If I'm honest, I despise Russo's music for Discovery so much, it kinda sours me on him as a composer overall. The main title is really obviously modeled on Game of Thrones and it annoys me so much that they did that in a franchise with such a rich musical history. My problem with Kurtzman-era Trek generally is that he's reduced Star Trek to trend chasing, to just aping the style and tone of modern "prestige" television instead of letting Trek be its own thing. I will say, having just heard his Picard theme for the first time (thanks @Gruesome Son of a Bitch!) that it's definitely not immediately offensive like the Discovery theme. It actually reminds me a bit of Silvestri!

Damn some of those images are pretty incredible. As cheesy as it is there’s something moving about Leia sending one last hologram to the galaxy to ask for their aid. It certainly packs more or a punch than Lando showing up out of nowhere with an entire fleet for some reason

Ah yes, Stinky the Hutt. My kid and I just watched that movie this weekend! Was just reminded of one of my favorite George Lucas stories, from the time of The Force Unleashed.

I just want a LEGO minifig.

You put things excellently.

Even when interviewed by Previn, Williams said that he used "a 19th century orchestra" in Star Wars, that the music he wrote was an anchor for old-fashioned melodies speaking to feelings etc. But then one hears a minute after a minute of these scores of his, and if they sound inspired by something, if they sound like a next step further from something, it's clearly ffrom 20th century music of the type that was rather fresh when he was a child and a student. In other words: he sounds like a composer from his generation would logically be expected to sound, building on the blocks of composers mostly from the two immediate generations before him. Stravinsky, Prokofiev, R. Strauss, RVW and other British 20th century composers, Enescu, Hindemith, Ligeti, Dutilleux, not to mention the Hollywood branch (Waxman, Herrmann, Rózsa, Korngold, Goldsmith)... of course with some Beethoven, Wagner, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, maybe even Mendelssohn, Verdi here and there, but these 19th century gentlemen's idiom constitutes less than 10% of his work, even in the most "old fashioned" of scores. So I don't really understand what seems to be the problem. He was always a composer of his times, and doing great!

I don't know why people like Jeff Russo so much. Everything I've heard of his was boring and/or unoriginal. I haven't seen Picard yet, but I'm sure the score is yet other snoozefest.

Good luck hunting it down! I think it would’ve made sense to have Mr. and Mrs. Randall on the volume 1 OST when it was originally released, if it does in fact have Frank’s theme, because it was noticeably left out on the OST. However, “Leave the Past Behind” and “A Car Accident” make up for it. I was half-hoping that the seasons would get deluxe releases like Da Vinci’s Demons, but unfortunately, there hasn’t been anything of the sort. It was interesting how season 3 was filled with mostly music that was tracked in from the previous two seasons; we all know that Bear was stretched pretty thin, so maybe his other work just got ahead of him. And I believe he gave some of his assistant composers more to do for season 4 than in the previous seasons, judging by the specific album track credits. Like I said before, I think season 4 was some of his strongest work yet, so I’m glad he wrote a ton of new material for each episode. While Roger and Brianna’s theme is in practically every scene they have together, I don’t mind because it’s very good.

I'd classify his sound as mostly 20th century, which is not outdated at all, as it really works with all sorts of films, both older and modern. When Williams used the words "19th century orchestra", I think that was just a hyperbole. Sure, his orchestrations and musical styles have undoubtedly been influenced by 18th and 19th century composers, but his music feels more at home with the 20th century composers you've mentioned. I am not sure if we have a 21st century classical style that we could call truly state-of-the-art. I'd think that people like Johan de Meij are developing it, but it hasn't matured yet, there's no unified consensus on what it should be. That sort of stuff is best left for retrospective analyses of the future.

Great compilation indeed!

*chef’s kiss* Just perfect.

Cool, that's what I thought. So again, unless I am mistaken it would seem that this is the first "live" John Williams CD recording.

At what point does that "normal feeling" just cross a line into selfish, dickish gloating, though? That's where people take issue with it. Like is that feeling just so satisfactory that you just _can't_ let something as precious as a videotaped interview from the 80's between two musicians possibly trickle into the unworthy masses of fellow fans? Is that feeling the justification for hoarding that? I'm using that example to make a general point.

There’s a Masterclass episode that I’d love to get my hands on that aired in 1998 (on ITV) featuring John Barry coaching a young film scoring student. I’m still surprised it hasn’t ended up on YouTube. The rights holder said it can never be aired again or uploaded online because the license was locked to one broadcast only. Apparently there’s one Barry fan who has it but they’re a bit of a recluse and have no interest in uploading it. Shame, really. This stuff really does deserve to be out there. https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/17283431.the-day-i-met-bond-composer-john-barry/

I'm talking about CD recordings. Or were classic albums like "The Spielberg/Williams Collaboration" and "Williams on Williams" culled from live concerts...? I assumed they were recorded separately in sessions. Also, to @Jay or whoever made the post about these Vienna concerts on the front page, I just thought I'd mention that this pic you included is actually from a different venue; @toothless was telling us about a different concert he was attending on the same day.

Will this mark the first-ever "live" concert recording of John Williams conducting?

Remembrances, full performance.

I have his Fargo work on album and I would describe it as "very good". He does an excellent job of channelling Burwell's very fine film score, IMO. But either he was bad composer casting for Trek, or with all of the producer "cooks in the kitchen", he did exactly what he was instructed to do. I think there's at least some chance it's the latter, because while Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a fantastic score, the great Cliff Eidelman was invited to submit demos for Star Trek: Discovery that IMO turned out to sound as relatively drab and un-inspired as Russo's eventual work on the show...here's his rejected main title (for some reason put up against the show's season 2 title sequence): You can listen to the other three demo cues he wrote here: https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/30/listen-to-a-discarded-score-for-star-trek-discovery/ Now before you say it's just because Cliff Eidelman is a washed up composer at this point (since he hasn't scored a feature film for 8 years), you should hear his Symphony for Two Pianos and Orchestra, written roughly around the same time period as those uninspiring Trek demos and recorded with no less than the LSO -- all three movements are on YouTube right now and they are *marvelous*: (If like me you think that's fantastic work, and want to buy the album on CD, it's only $12.97 from CDBaby, and it includes a whole other concert work that's also fantastic: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/cliffeidelman12) In contrast to both Eidelman's demo and Russo's final score for the show, the demo work Austin Wintory submitted for Discovery is far superior IMO, but he produced it entirely on his own initiative without any directives from above: https://medium.com/@awintory/star-trek-discovery-in-a-parallel-universe-94695577457a What do you think? Yavar

JW sounds so different here!

I noticed a few times during Sunday's performance that the red light on the camera at the side of the venue only came on from time to time. I'm guessing only specific shots of his were being recorded, and he was being cued in via his headphones. I suppose it means less to edit. I hadn't thought it would be done this way, but it makes sense. (If I'm right.) I'm still utterly on cloud 9 from the weekend. My girlfriend and I were right on the back row at the top for Saturday, and I was fortunate enough to get a seat on the ground floor for Sunday via the waiting list. It was everything I ever dreamed it could be. I'm not sure I'll ever experience a feeling like it again.

Important reference materials like that should not be hoarded and traded for favors anyway, but shared with the world as far and wide as possible. To delight in hoarding knowledge as "exclusive" and "fun" is contemptible.

That was no accident. The person in charge of the Vienna Phil social media is very aware that we're not an official account. However, due to its popularity, number of followers and account name, JWFan's has quickly become the "de facto" John Williams account for most Instagram users (something to be proud of!).

It's the way it is these days, unless you watch The Orville.

They are fun together, Previn clearly loves John in his gruff way and it's amusing to see him frustrated by Williams' extreme humility about his gifts.

It's good, but beware...what comes after is quite different...good, but different. As you've got LIVE IN COLOMBIA you've already gotten a taste of the APP's variety.

Williams must have been inspired by this music in some of the Star Wars OT. No wonder, since Dutilleux wrote for Serge Koussevitzky and his foundation.

.

It may have been available slightly sooner, but found my order of a few of the individual pieces (digitally) via sheet musicdirect. It’s dated Dec 29, 2015. The physical books may have been available slightly later than that date, but if memory serves I recall seeing them in stock at a local music shop before the end of the year.

SW:TLJ in America, baby: The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, March 19-21, 2021 https://www.njsymphony.org/events/detail/star-wars-the-last-jedi-in-concert

hECK YEAH!

New trailer and poster for the final season of The Clone Wars

Don't forget the bizarre, blink-and-you'll-miss-it integration of Rose into the climactic battle. She gets all of 2 inexplicable shots near some transport atop the Star Destroyer (wasn't she staying behind at the Resistance base?!), then Finn has a bizarre telekinesis moment where he seemingly talks to her via the Force to tell her something, which is never explained. Then she vanishes from the rest of the sequence (and I think she only re-appears in the background during the reunion sequence). But before I could even comprehend what was happening there, suddenly there's Sith Troopers flying around on jetpacks (remember how they were built up to be crucial characters, only to appear in 3 shots?) and everything starts exploding. The whole climax is like an epileptic seizure captured on film, leaving you dazed and confused. Probably the worst directed and edited sequence of any major Hollywood film in recent years. Were JJ and his editor smoking crack when they signed off on this? Dislike Rian's story choices in TLJ all you like, but that film is superbly directed. At no stage are you utterly dumbfounded by a total lack of context and geography for the events unfolding before your eyes.

For some reason I thought about the space battle today. SW and RotJ spend just enough time setting up the precise plans ahead of time, and you know the goals and can follow it first time even when things temporarily go wrong (shield's up, gotta bide time - got caught, gotta have a ground battle to get another chance to deactivate the shield). I've seen TROS once, and... what happened above Exogol? The Resistance just went because we gotta fight. The FO was already there unified with the Sith fighters and fleet, into the Final Order, in... that 18 hour time limit they idiotically gave again in the opening? Enemy fleet ridiculously big, no real tension. Finn and co ride horses on a Star Destroyer, until they don't. I don't know if I'd even remember it if it wasn't in the trailer. They go for the one antenna which controls all the gajillion ships until it doesn't because now another one does. Lando arrives out of nowhere with another ridiculous fleet out of nowhere, no impact, meh, we only see 10 shots of the whole thing anyway. Palps überlightnings everything and they all start going down until he doesn't and they don't. At some point Finn (and BB maybe?) open some hatch? Richard E Grant gets blown out the window and the battle is won and they all go home. I have no fucking clue what happened.

A tranthgendehhh Bond whothe obthethed with pronounth

I think The Hunt (The Round-Up) from The Lost World is still my answer. One of my favorite JW cues of all time!

Sorry for the necro but just thought about doing a thread like this. Quint Meets His End has to be up there, but most of Arrival in New York is what sparked my idea!

I dig this.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51209197