ChrisAfonso

New edition arriving Tuesday
 
Coming 4/16.
 

 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/95015405220/posts/10168907378520221/

Wow, thanks everyone!  Obviously, the most important question to address is how I got those italics. Simple! https://lingojam.com/FacebookFonts 

As for the timeframe: I have over a year to hand in the finished manuscript, but my goal is to have it completed well before that. It's a big book, and publishing is a very slow process. But everything so far is proceeding as I have forseen...
 
It's not a guide to the scores really, but something more holistic, with each chapter looking at cues from all three trilogies from some angle: musical referentiality, thematic transformation, concert arrangements, and so on. There will be a ton of music examples (all my own annotated transcriptions as usu.), hopefully presented in an accessible way that draws in people who can't read sheet music. I know notation and music-theory jargon can be intimidating, and I'm hyper-aware of the potential gatekeeping effect it could on an already niche readership. But at the same time, I think we can all agree this music warrants deep and serious analysis! It's a balancing act for sure... 
 
Alas, I don't have special access to recordings, and can't speak to official expanded album releases, as amazing as they would be! 
 
Incidentally: I don't see it trumpeted nearly enough on these boards but Chloé Huvet came out with a book on SW music (mainly the OT and PT) a couple years ago that is absolutely brilliant and similarly synthetic in approach. The book is in French, which limits the audience, but it's worth getting your hands on if only for the fantastic music examples and charts.  The amount of insight in her prose is incredible too, and it's been a major source of inspriation to me. 

Here is Mikes talk before the concert: 
 

Guess I will need to update the thread title again... 🙄
 
Karol

The happy news I cryptically alluded to last week is now something I can make official: I just signed a book contract with OUP for 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘬𝘺𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴: 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘴!   It's a book it feels like I've been writing in my head for a long, long time -- since middle school, kinda? And unless Williams somehow returns to write another entry in the series, I'm treating it a chance to provide a properly 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 investigation into these scores, all nine of them.   Even Rise of Skywalker?? 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 Rise of Skywalker!   My hope is this book does some justice to the complexity, challenge, and sheer magic of this music.   Now, back to the grindstone!   https://www.facebook.com/Falstaft/posts/pfbid0L6wUjeDDxj6AmhwHh1f9obrVMJfYbPx4GJM8YaEWiZtqxwp37A88monPFVDxBQ26l  
Congratulations, @Falstaft!

Here's some screencaps
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My pictures while examining those sheets.  Was such a thrill to hold the original, hand written full scores!  

 
Three piles, A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. 
 

Intermission time. Loving it.
 

 
Karol 

JWFan was born 25 years ago today! 
 
Hard to imagine back then that the site would still be up and running two and a half decades later, let alone that the Maestro would still be active after having composed nearly thirty more film scores and a similar number of concert works, as well as conducting over 200 concerts including Vienna, Berlin, Milan and Japan!
 
Dozens of his film scores have received perfect releases during all this time, providing fans with the confidence that many more will come in the future, while maintaining and further enhancing the collective appreciation and admiration for the music we all love and which will remain with us for the rest of our lives.
 
The analysis and discussion of his work has reached such level of comprehensiveness and detail, that our forums have become an essential reference for fans and scholars, while fomenting the creation of fascinating projects that expand and deepen the study of the Maestro’s oeuvre and contribute to increasing its appreciation by future generations who, without doubt, will continue to ensure that his name is in the place it deserves in the history of music and cinema.
 
Thank you, Mr. Williams, and thanks to all those who have contributed during this time to make the site such a wonderful place. Here’s to 25 more!
 
PS. The following quoted post, written for this thread 10 years ago, provides a short summary of the origins of the site:
 
 
 

I visited the Schott Music store in London this week - nice to see that they stock some of the Omni books on location  
Bought Wrath of Khan, and made sure to express my interest in them carrying more Omni editions in the future!

I've been summoned!
 
Exact definitions differ between theorists of course, but there is a pretty stable consensus concerning what's genuinely fugal, what's canonical or imitative, and what's just polyphonically busy. For a fugue, it's all about that incremental feeling. One voice introduces the fugue's main idea ("subject") in full, then another comes in repeating it while the first offers a countermelody ("answer"), and so on. Traditionally, these need to be at quite specific tonal levels -- the second either in ("real") or on ("tonal") the key of the dominant.  And back and forth it goes until all seperate contrapuntal strands are introduced, usually 3-4 voices in total. I'm simplifying a lot, though it's worth pointing out that Williams almost never writes fugues by completely by the "book." The key thing is that feeling of accretion, of rising intricacy, of one melodic subject chasing another, 
 
 
As breathtaking as it is, I'm afraid there's nothing fugal in the Asteroid Field. March of the Resistance's middle section includes definite but quite unconventional fugal exposition that modulates up by fifth three times, from F to D, and doesn't have a consistent countersubject. 
 
A few years ago I gave a talk on all things neo-Baroque in Williams, which included transcribing all of his fugues, fugatos, and canonic passages. It's a marvelous thing to behold. In any case, my vote is for Black Sunday. 
 

Yeah, the viola concerto is in dire need of a good-quality recording.

Yes, it is nice. But still another recording of the Viola Concerto, the Horn or the Clarinet Concerto would have been more welcome.
 
By the way, his most recorded concerto remains the Tuba Concerto?

I made this little pet project as a sort of "companion" to phbart's discoveries in this thread: condensing the best, most unique parts of the Main Title recording sessions into two tracks for the Alternates Section: Main Title (Original), and Main Title (Alternate).
 
-***-
 
I should probably start this post by clearly laying out what the recording sessions consist of and what my end goal here is:
 
Intro: The intro, as originally written, consists of a big Brass Buildup for when the Star Wars title first appears.  The original intro was recorded on Takes 16, 17, and 18.  Take 19 omitted the buildup, creating the Familiar Intro we know and love today.  Take 20 pared down the brass orchestration even further, creating a rather Weak Intro.
 
The Third Sentence: There's a minor orchestration difference in the strings when the third sentence of the crawl appears.  As originally written, the strings play in a High Register the entire time.  It was recorded this way on Takes 16 and 17.  On Take 18, this part was altered to have the strings start at a Low Register an octave below before switching to the higher register, and this change was kept for Takes 19 and 20 as well.  (IIRC, another user on this forum used the term "Divisi" for this change, meaning that half the strings play higher notes than the other half.  Since I don't have the sheets in front of me, I can't confirm this with any degree of self-confidence, so I'm just going to use "High Register Strings" and "Low Register Strings" to make things easier on myself.)
 
Tatooine Reveal: As originally written, there's a big Timpani and Cymbal hit when the planet comes into view.  Takes 16, 17, and 18 were recorded this way.  Takes 19 and 20 were recorded with a much softer accent for the reveal.  I'll be calling these the Strong Tatooine Reveal and Soft Tatooine Reveal, respectively.
 
-***-
 
Ignoring the parts used in the Film Version [Familiar Intro (Take 19), Low Register Strings on the Third Sentence (Take 20), Strong Tatooine Reveal (Take 18)], there are, in essence, two significant alternates to be culled from these sessions:
 
Original: Brass Buildup Intro (Takes 16, 17, and 18 Available), High Register Strings on the Third Sentence (Takes 16 and 17 Available), Strong Tatooine Reveal (Takes 16 and 17 Available)
Alternate: Weak Intro (Take 20), Low Register Strings on the Third Sentence (Takes 18 and 19 Available), Soft Tatooine Reveal (Takes 19 and 20 Available)
 
My goal is to create a "Main Title (Original)" track, and a "Main Title (Alternate)" track, each following its own structure which I detailed above, using the best remaining parts of the Main Title recording sessions that aren't used in the Film Version.
 
-***-
 
 
Before we begin, I'd like to share my most recent recreation of Main Title (Film Version), mainly to reference the two alternates against.  This uses Take 19 from 0:00-0:08, Take 18 from 0:08-0:41, Take 20 from 0:41-1:31, Take 18 from 1:31-1:43, and Take 20 from 1:43-end.
 
-***-
 
Moving on to my edits for the alternates, let's start with Main Title (Alternate), since that was by far the easier track to accomplish.

The Anthology used the entirety of Take 20 for this track (and the entirety of Take 19 for the main version), but since the vast majority of 0:41-end of Take 20 was used in the Film Version of the cue, I couldn't do that for this edit.
 
Instead, only 0:00-0:41 of this track is from Take 20, while 0:41-end is from Take 19, which, aside from the intro used in the Film Version, is pretty much identical to Take 20 in terms of content; particularly with the Soft Tatooine Reveal.  Admittedly, I toyed with the idea of cutting back to Take 20 for that part, since it wasn't used in the Film Version, but comparing the two takes, I actually think Take 19 was already the better performance of the Soft Tatooine Reveal, so I just left the edit there and called it a day.
 
Reverted the edit from v3 back to v2.  The v3 edit incorporated a small section from Take 18 to clean up a slightly sloppy performance at 1:52-1:56 of Take 19, but I realized recently that if Mike Matessino were doing these edits, he would probably treat this particular track as an homage to the Anthology release, and so Take 19 would play straight through to the end.
 
-***-
 
 
As for Main Title (Original), this one was a bit more complex.  The only possible candidates for this track were Takes 16, 17, and 18.  All three of these takes have some noticable performance flub or another in some places, 16 and 17 sometimes have technical issues, and the parts of 18 that don't have flubs or podium changes...  were used in the Film Version.  It took... a bit of work to sort this out.
 
0:00-0:08 was from Take 18.  Take 16 doesn't hold on the buildup note long enough to be distinctive, and Take 17 might have a small blip during that section.  But even putting those issues aside...  Take 18's intro is just absolutely beautiful.  It's almost a shame it wasn't used in the film version!  (Almost...)
 
0:08-1:10 was from Take 17.  Take 16 has a rough early mix, with the woodwind flourishes given more prominence than the other instruments.  The equivalent section from Take 18 is either already used in the Film Version, or doesn't feature the High Register Strings on the Third Sentence.  Not only that...  but just listen to Take 17's trumpets at 1:05!  Wonderful!
 
For v3, I replaced 0:27-0:41 with Take 16, with it's overbearing woodwinds solved by "remixing" the track by isolating the center from the sides.  Take 17 in general has wonderful brass, but is a little lacking in the string section compared to Take 16, and for the string-heavy Second Sentence this is especially noticeable.  That, plus the slight sloppiness of the snares in Take 17 just before 0:41 made Take 16 the clear winner for this section.
 
1:10-1:31 was from Take 16.  Take 17 has an accidental stage noise, and Take 18 had a small performance flub close to the 1:31 transition.  Plus, I liked how the Take 16 trombones at 1:10 nicely follow up the Take 17 trumpets at 1:05.
 
1:31-1:47 was from Take 17.  Of the three takes, this one had unquestionably the best my favorite performance of the Strong Tatooine Reveal.  (To say nothing about the fact that Take 18 was already used in the Film Version)  Take 16 mixes the Timpani a little too high, and there's a performance flub shortly before the Star Destroyer reveal as well.

1:47-end was from Take 16.  The brass section was tripping over themselves in Take 18.  Take 17 really slows down the performance here; I'd guess the intent was to highlight how big the Star Destroyer was, but it throws off the sync way too much.  Splicing Take 16 into this spot really helped bring the whole thing closer to the timing of the later takes.  (About as close as you can get with these early takes, anyway...)
 
For v3, I added in a small section of Take 17 from 1:53-1:56, to shorten the final brass chords so that they more closely match the Film Version's Take 20.
 
-***-
 
Another addendum: While I was doing this writeup, I started rethinking one of the bits from Take 17 that I left off of what I had for Main Title (Original).  The slower performance of 1:47-1:54 of Take 17 is definitely a deliberate creative choice and not a performance flub, and it's a creative choice that's exclusive to this take and no others...  But at the same time you could also argue it probably isn't what was originally intended, since the intention was—obviously—to synch up with the footage, and the equivalent portion of Take 16 is closer to that ideal, albeit not exactly fulfilling it.
 
Then again, I wrote off everything I didn't use as being either redundant, or "flawed listening material", and both takes are well performed in this spot.  You could definitely make a solid argument for this portion of Take 16 being more redundant than the same portion of Take 17 being flawed listening material.
 
To cover all of my bases, I decided to make a separate alternate edit of Main Title (Original) that uses Take 17 from 1:31-1:54 and Take 16 from 1:54-end:
 
As of v3, I'm mothballing the alternate slower performance edit of the Original; instead I've added all of my older edits to this playlist.  At this point, I've decided the most important thing is maintaining consistent timing with the Film Version as much as possible.
 
-***-
 
Between the Film Version, and the Alternate and Original edits I present here, all three major compositional variations of the Main Title are accounted for, with no overlap between tracks, and all five takes from the recording sessions get featured in a substantial capacity as well.
 
Any bits that have been left out are either redundant at best, or flawed listening material at worst.

https://www.discogs.com/release/29790961-Bernstein-Williams-James-Ehnes-Saint-Louis-Symphony-Orchestra-Stéphane-Denève-Serenade-Violin-Conc
 
This might actual come from a live recording from November 2019, with Williams in attendance. If that's the case, the original concert line up included Barber's Adagio and Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony.
Of course, until more info is out, they might have the recorded the concerto during the rehearsals. 

From the program notes by John Yeh:
When John Williams wrote his only Clarinet Concerto, it was as a gift to
my former teacher Michele Zukovsky, long-time Principal Clarinet of
the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She premiered it to great acclaim and
performed it several times in the 1990s. After Michele retired from the
LA Phil in 2015, she presented me with the score and all the
performance materials for John's Concerto, which is unpublished, in the
hope that one day I would record the work and perform it widely.
During the 2020-2021 Covid Pandemic, I had time to deeply study the
Concerto and to correspond with John Williams about it. He has given
me his blessing to program it.

Aaaaw, sorry to hear it. But he was in a very frail state last time I saw him, so I knew he didn't have long. It's somehow comforting to know that he and Williams managed to meet one last time, when he did the concerts in Japan last year.
 

4m3/5m1 a.k.a. "The Hunt" !!
 
 

What did the Doctor say to his companion as she ran into a supermarket? 

'Wait, Rose'. 

Thang yew, thang yew. I'm here all week, try the chicken-in-a-basket. 

Feature Story | February 2, 2024
An Interview with John Williams
By Simon Woods
 
https://symphony.org/features/an-interview-with-john-williams/

(Specifically the coda, timestamped)
In the roughly 20 years I've known this specific recording, I've never heard anything that comes close to it.

Howard Shore's The Lighting of the Beacons from The Return of the King - the first piece recorded on the first day of the sessions.

How else would you have gotten unreleased music?