Jacck

Have you guys noticed the beginning of both Emperor's theme and Rey's theme is very similar?
 
Karol

The Rise of Skywalker is a transformative experience.
 
Trapped in the latest culture war, Rey and Ben never received any real character development. But Williams has been telling a story of love through his themes since The Force Awakens. Both Rey and Ben’s themes quote Across the Stars. They start out as the antithesis of one another. But in The Rise of Skywalker or Star Wars: Episode IX – Beauty and the Beast, Rey and Ben’s themes sound so tired by the end of the film, that you begin to really understand and appreciate how the themes mirror and compliment each other, how they love each other. For those who are hesitant about The Rise of Skywalker, watch the film and experience a beautiful musical narrative of love. On the surface, the film is cheesy, but the music tells a worthy love story on its own. 
 
I never understood people’s obsession for Reylo, but after seeing the film twice, I understand why some fans may see the sequel trilogy as a Starwarsian retelling of La Belle et la Bête. 
 

 

I'm already in love with the new theme that closes out "Farewell" (I mentioned it above, starts around 3:35).  It sounds like no other theme in Star Wars.

Okay, so apparently this just happened!? I don't have Disney+ (not available in Australia) and details appear to be scarce, but apparently the entire saga from the prequels to the sequels has just dropped in 4K with Dolby Atmos exclusive to Disney+
Disney+ gets every 'Star Wars' movie in 4K, Dolby Vision and Atmos
 
 

A.I. is a masterpiece, it's a shame on my part that I didn't recognise how special the score was until I had bought the LLL edition, and I suspect that it's the most underrated score in the Williams catalogue.

The freeway chase was mostly practical, so not sure what you’re referring to. 

Reloaded arguably has the best action scenes of the trilogy. But the plot and a lot of the expository dialogue is pretty bad.
 
Revolutions is just terrible all around, but Davis still knocked it out of the park with the score. 

What?! That's one of my favourite scenes in the whole film. And the guts they had to stretch it out the way they did. Awesome.

His work for The Lost World is very... robust? Much more rough around the edges compared to the original Jurassic Park score. 

Looks like season 5 marketing has begun!
 
 

I just came to express my absolute adoration for this album! Such wonderful new arrangements and performance. Sublime! ❤
 
The use of articulations in Hedwig's Theme are brilliant; the voicings in Luke and Leia. The cadenzas. 😍

I just came to express my absolute adoration for this album! Such wonderful new arrangements and performance. Sublime! ❤
 
The use of articulations in Hedwig's Theme are brilliant; the voicings in Luke and Leia. The cadenzas. 😍

Oh Mark, you are such a nationalist d*ckhead. I'm glad how JW stop him

Yo I found it! Nowhere near in depth as the Empire Strikes Back documentary, as you might imagine (it even cribs from that one!). This is more of a news profile, but here's a brief little glimpse.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Here you go!
 
 

Hey guys,
 
Just found this this little gem of John playing the Luke and Leia theme after what sounds like an interview in the 80s. Not sure if it’s been posted before but if not then I hope you enjoy  
 
 

Lol
 
Anyway it's bound to be something about him scoring some (or all) of the Cassian Andor series.

I guess that’s where his jazz background comes into play.

There's a fun experiment you can do with this at the piano. Play a major or minor chord in the right hand e.g. C major or C minor. Now, in the left hand, put your hand on a major or minor chord one semitone above and one semitone below the right hand. So, for instance, with C major in the right hand, you place your left hand on B major or Db major. Now pick one of the notes in your two left hand chords. This is now your bass note - play it with the chord in the right hand (so e.g. C major in RH, with D# in the bass from the B major chord). Now do this multiple times for different chords. Voila! You have become John Williams.

It's interesting that you talk about Williams "masking" dissonances, as if Williams was trapped into employing dissonances which he then tried to cover up by choosing the right instruments (probably not what you meant, but it sounds that way!). Of course, the opposite is really true - Williams mixes in the dissonance himself. However, rather than drawing attention on those very dissonances (as, for example, Boulez might...or "concert" JW might) he tends to treat dissonance as something like musical seasoning; to spice up what would otherwise be fairly dull, consonant music. One of the ways he does this is to do what sounds like "covering up" dissonance using the orchestra, which I guess is what you allude to. But, of course, this is just an illusion really. Every note you hear comes from the composer's pen, whether or not in the end they sound as if they are appearing out of nowhere, or as an "accident".
 
So what is JW's favourite spice? When it comes to brass, It is undeniably the minor 2nd interval between the 7th and 8th degrees of the scale (i.e. B-C in C major). JW would sooner jump off a bridge than not use this dissonance in a fanfare. Listen to the one that plays when Yoda raises the ship in TESB, which is in E major:
 
 
Now, somebody with an "untrained ear" might be surprised to know that when they are listening to the above, they are also listening to this:
https://picosong.com/whnva
 
These are the 7th and 8th degrees of the E major scale: D#-E.
 
JW uses a lot of this sort of dissonance in the E.T. flying theme (in C major):
 
 
Listening to this, one might naively think that the accompanying horns at the start are playing simple major chords (C-E-G, or 1st, 3rd and 5th degrees). But in fact, they are playing "add2" chords, i.e. chords with the 2nd degree added (D), so there is a dissonance between the C-D and the D-E. Later on, JW employs his beloved 7th-8th dissonance, at 0:20 (F#-G) and 0:25 (G-Ab). These dissonances on their own sound like they belong to a horror movie, not a feel-good family movie (though I grant that E.T. does contain some horrifying bits...). But when played by the brass in a certain range, these dissonances take on more of a "colouring" function, and you might miss these dissonances if you don't pay attention. However, take away these dissonances, and you take away an integral part of the whole. This is what I mean by JW using dissonances as "seasoning".
 
Now for something entirely different. Listen to the prologue music of HP1, when Dumbledore does...whatever he does:
 
 
Listen to that last chord at 1:15. Can you hear "it"? I made a mockup of this portion some years ago, where "it"'s clearer; listen to the high register from 0:17:
https://picosong.com/whnWd
 
Williams here is using the winds to apply a purely "colouristic" effect to the brass chord in the foreground.
This is what the wind chord sounds like on the piano:
https://picosong.com/whnvw
 
This is what the brass chord sounds like on the piano:
https://picosong.com/whnv3
 
By the way, Williams here is essentially recycling a technique he used in another film, TPM, where he used a similar wind chord. However, that time he used it in a much more dramatic manner, less as a purely colouristic effect (listen to the chord at 3:28 and pay attention to the high register):
 
 
Finally, I want to go off the track a bit (though I hope it's still relevant) and close with some music from another composer who was a master at "masking" dissonances via orchestration, a composer who greatly influenced Williams and other Hollywood composers - namely, Korngold. His opera "Das Wunder der Heliane" closes with the two lovers making their way into heaven through the pearly gates, being welcomed by the sound of singing angels. But if you listen to it, there's a distinctly bittersweet tone coming from the orchestra:
 
 
It's almost like the angels merely represent a "sheen" of something that is filled with sadness and sorrow. The reason is that the orchestral accompaniment is in fact full of dissonances - try playing some of those chords which fall on the downbeat. There are instances earlier in the opera where Korngold plays a major chord on top of a minor chord, though it's barely audible the way he orchestrates it.

You've neatly summarized one of my favorite things about the music of John Williams. You get these passages where there's a fairly clear, fairly simple harmonic structure - sometimes even verging on "pop" in its flavor, as you said - but it's spiced up by some funky dissonances. And it's a well-known fact that dissonances tend to be less obvious when split between different octaves and/or different timbres. Williams especially likes to do this with the bassline...throw some pretty straightforward chord progressions into the middle registers, but write a conflicting bassline beneath, sometimes even a minor second or a tritone away from the root. It's a great way of building tension - and then of course releasing it when you come to a more straightforward tonality. I love it when he does this as part of a big crescendo or build-up - consider the final seconds of the first Battle of Yavin cue, right before the contrapuntal Force theme passage in the brass. Another good example is the moment before the beginning of the bike chase in E.T.

Inspired by @Loert's thread on "The Map Room: Dawn," I wanted to ask if there are any particular examples orchestration being used to kind of mask dissonances in John's music.
Often, you get the sense that his music is considered very straightforward, even "pop" by many for it's listenability, accessibility, and melodic recognizability, but, when you listen closely, and espeiclly when you hear a piano reduction, for example, the striking harmonic invention and complexity behind this facade, if you will, becomes apparent.  It is almost as if John has achieved the perfect synthesis between romantic traditions and modernist developments in music.
How big a role does this idea of orchestration used to mask dissonance, which was brought up in the aforementioned thread, play in all of this?    

Elfman's MIB scores are fine.  I'm a big Elfman fan, but for some reason the first one never stuck with me besides the opening titles.  I think each successive MIB score has been better than the previous, though, so I'm still looking forward to this.