Miguel Andrade

I've been experiencing sleepless nights on Williams account for over two decades and brought friends and family along -- last night was the wife and the cat

In his conversation with Dudamel at KUSC, Williams just mentioned that he was asked to write a processional for the Vienna Philharmonic annual ball. He also confirmed that the idea is to premiere the new Violin Concerto at Tanglewood, Summer 21, covid allowing.

Resurrecting a few old posts, but I had to say something... Unless you came up with something I never read, which is obviously very much a possibility, all that I ever saw Williams say about the late Maxwell Davies was that he was one of the finest of his generation. I know a little bit of his music, that can go from the easy-folksy "Orkney Wedding with Sunrise", composed for Williams and the Boston Pops, to some rather serious, somber, "difficult" stuff like Ave Maris Stella: The Korngold score is of course "Kings Row". Maybe the Herrmann influenced score you're thinking of is "The Fury". And I always hear a lot of Penderecki in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Didn't knew about Dutilleux's "L'Arbre des Songes", but will try to check it as soon as possible. I know very little Dutilleux. Are you sure you meant Rachmaninoff when referring to the Oboe Concerto final movement Commedia? I was pretty sure it was "Haydn meets Shostakovich".

"By Request" is indeed the only compilation that featured some newly recorded sellections. As for sound improvement, going by the compilatons I own, I don't think they sound any better than the original releases.

Probably this one: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000czqy

I'm pretty sure I got my copy in late Spring. By the time I read about the press presentation with the Pro Arte Orchestra in the June issue of Classic CD, I already had the CD for a while. That might actually have been the first live performance, though for a limited group. Same thing happened at the Salt Lake Winter Olympics and the Barak Obama inauguration.

I have a very soft spot for those Philips recordings. From the ones you're missing, "Pops Britannia" and the two Jessie Norman collaborations are a must. I'm very fond of "Bernstein By Boston", though I never really liked much the medley they did of West Side Story. "Swing, Swing, Swing" is really fun, and "Pops in Love"... well, the name kind of says it all. Really wonderful collection for a romantic evening. Holst's The Planets is great indeed, as pointed out before, and I also like a lot "Pops à lá Russe". If memory serves, the Tchaikovsky/Prokofiev album was Grammy nominated and it's fun, though I prefer other performances over this one. The Gershwin is a hit or miss thing -- love the abridged version of the Porgy and Bess suite, but never cared much for this performance of Rhapsody.

There is indeed a BBC broadcast recording of that LSO concert floating around since the early 00's. It does included Summon the Heroes in the program. As for the release of the CD, I'm pretty sure I got Summon the Heroes (or Sound of Glory in some other countries) earlier in the year. Can't find a release date for the disc, but it was surely before June, as in the June'96 edition of Classic CD were news of Williams being in London presenting his new Olympic piece with the Pro Arte Orchestra and by that time I already had the CD for a couple of months.

I have a few program book scans, not sure if I have the one from 1996. I'll check and post whatever I find on my back up hard drives.

I also love the BSO/Ozawa recording of The Planets on Philips

I'm ready to bet everything on that this was conducted by Williams himself.

Thanks for posting. I'm betting this was recorded ahead of the premiere at Fenway Park. Back then there was a very short video snippet of this being rehearsed at Symphony Hall and mics could clearly be seen.

That seems to be the same thing as on the CD release.

There a number of recordings of The Long Goodbye, both song and instrumental. The Long Goodbye [3:35] Arranged by Wade Markus Lou Donaldson Orchestra Recorded December 11, 1972, released 1973 The Long Goodbye [4:11] Arranged and conducted by Lanny Meyers Recorded 1995 The Long Goodbye [4:10] Arranged by John Williams Harry Connick Jr, vocals • Boston Pops Orchestra • John Williams, conductor Recorded live at Symphony Hall, Boston, 2001 The Long Goodbye [3:15] Arranged by Al Nicholls Sandra Lawrence and The Vendettas Recorded 2003 The Longer Goodbye (inspired by “The Long Goodbye”) [12:00] Arranged by Al Nicholls Sandra Lawrence and The Vendettas Recorded 2003 The Long Goodbye [5:24] Performed by Diane Hubka Arranged by Christian Jacob Recorded 2005 The Long Goodbye [3:53] Fred Waller, piano The Long Goodbye [2:35] Stephen Oliva, piano Recorded 2011 The Long Goodbye [3:13] Carmel McCreagh Recorded 2013 The Long Goodbye [5:04] Peter Jones, vocal • Vasilis Xenopoulos, flute, alto and tenor saxophones • Neil Angilley, piano • Geoff Gascoyne, double bass • Davide Giovannini, drums and percussion Recorded 2013 The Long Goodbye [4:54] Dmitri Matheny, flugelhorn • Bill Anschell piano Arranged by Dmitri Matheny Recorded 2016

Meant 2000. Have no idea why I wrote that...