Marcus

I wish I could hear this on disc already..

Final showdown between Kylo Ren and Rey.

I liked that it was scored as a personal tragedy, and not an intergalactic one.

Just saw the film. I will focus on the score, and refrain from addressing much about the film per se, except that it is easily the most well-written, well-executed Star Wars film since ESB. The new characters are very memorable, and the film has a welcome sense of discovery to it. The score is gorgeous, but builds rather slowly. There's a LOT of thematic development, and much more than in the prequels, as Williams has been afforded the luxury of composing on a structural macro-scale in a way that the prequels denied him. The new themes (most prominently Rey's Theme, Kylo Ren's excellent sinister five note motif and the fugal march for the Resistance) co-exist comfortably with the rest of the saga's musical glossary. But keep in mind: The film is very much about self-discovery, and the score reflects this. There are many hidden allusions to the Imperial March, but only one actual quote. Tonally, it feels more like a contemporary take on 70's Williams (not 80's or 90's); it's mostly rather serious and severe. The most prominent new color is the emphasis on piano and celesta in Rey's theme, a theme that also offers an extension of Star Wars' harmonic palette into more pentatonic, contemporary Williams writing. Unlike the film, though, the score -despite its meticulously crafted pacing- has a sense of being an epilogue. And how could it not? Revisiting that far,far away galaxy for the seventh time, now as an octogenarian, Williams must obviously feel how deeply connected his own career, development and musical life are with this cultural phenomenon. There's something retrospective about the score, even though it relies heavily on new material. I can't wait to discover the score on disc, as its subtleties seem to be legion, and I have but briefly heard it on a surface level.

Yes. That's what it means. But then again, there was nothing very williams-esque about the theme to begin with.

My hunch is that all the music we hear is culled from different sections of the same concert arrangement, but then cut up and reassembled to fit the trailer/spot. Definitely.

This isn't a Williams theme. Melodically, harmonically and structurally, it's all very foreign to his style. The first half of the theme (first eight notes) is quite distinctive, though, albeit a bit bland and generic. The rest is unmemorable.

Given that this is art, not sport, there's no reason to think this won't be the best one yet (Verdi was in his eighties too when he wrote "Aida").

As I've a said all along: A gorgeous theme. Instantly memorable and elegantly constructed.

In other words, he isn't bound by any one harmonic procedure, but shifts freely between them. Octatonic melodics can be harmonized by triadic, secundal, quartal or complex structures unrelated to the scale employed. Melodically, octatonic subsets (half-whole or whole-half tetrachordal units) often work as passing tones, embellishing notes of greater harmonic stability, even in fairly tonal passages (the latter procedure relates to similar chromatic encircling in non-octatonic settings). There are, of course, certain intervals or intervallic units Williams' ear tends to gravitate towards, regardless of harmonic context, such as #4, b6, maj7 and #9, and any set emphasizing diminished or augmented octaves based on 0-3-4/0-8-11, 0-9-13... These can often be read as belonging to an octatonic tonality, although I suspect this matters less to Williams, as it would seem he treats these sounds more like sonic "pets" (as I have elsewhere referred to them).

Also, the melody doesn't end with just a sustained leading tone; what makes the phrase so beautiful, is that final leap up a minor sixth from the 7th to the 5th.. And even within just the two snippets we've heard, there's already a great variation in the version for horns (ending with a very idiomatic melodic descent).

That mock-up doesn't once complete the melody (or what we've heard of it, anyway) correctly, though, and it's written in a style very different from Williams'. I wouldn't call it a mock-up as much as a variation, albeit a misleading one: It mis-represents the theme in question, and puts it in a very simplified harmonic and structural context.

Williams employs octatonicism very freely, seamlessly shifting tetrachordal subsets in often non-octatonic harmonic contexts. Only occasionally will you find more traditional "modal" use of octatonicism in Williams' ouvre. I think part of what makes Williams' harmonic language so compelling, is precisely this sense of synthesis.

Somehow, when only barely audible, it sounded convincingly orchestral. It also sounded more detailed; I guess my mind imagined more texture in the absence of discernible sound. Still, this is much more harmonically sophisticated than your usual trailer fare. Whoever wrote it has a good grasp of quirky prokofiev-isms. And even (some) williams-isms. The (implied) timbral choices are rather crafty. Then again, could there be details so obscured by the rather synthetic sound of what's left of the soundtrack with the dialogue removed, as to (again) give a false impression?

I hear it only rather faintly, but it's definitely possible. It certainly sounds suspiciously sophisticated!

Just to clarify: It's Williams' orchestrations, whether they be penned in full score by Spencer, Pope, Neufeld, Karam etc. The difference in style has only to do with Williams' preferences. These have become less contingent on romantic-mid 20th century techniques (Tchaikovsky-Shostakovich-Polish 60s avant-garde) as Williams' own style matured (which is also why "Star Wars" is the least Williams-esque of the star wars scores). You may like or dislike his artistic evolution, but don't blame the orchestrators for his choices; they're his, not theirs.

Cheers!

I have a hard time imagining the woodwind soli being sampled; there's just too much warmth and expressivity to them; it's phrased too beautifully. Then again, I've never worked with samples, and know next to nothing about them. If this isn't by Williams, it would be difficult for me to imagine who else it could have been written by. It would have to be someone very deeply versed in not only the superficialities of Williams' technique, but also his poetic sensibilities. No trailer composer I've ever heard has displayed such affinities, nor have any other current media composers that I'm aware of. Whoever this is, I'd say the Force is with him/her...

I don't hear it. I just hear superficial shared traits, as far as intervals or rhythms go. That's precisely what "similar" means, at least in my world, and was what I was pointing out.But it's not the kind of similarity that really counts, though. At least not for me, anyway... It's a bit like saying two people look similar because they both have brown eyes and similar hairdos. Shared traits and similarities needn't constitute being "similar". I guess I just find the Giacchino comparison blown out of proportion...

I don't hear it. I just hear superficial shared traits, as far as intervals or rhythms go. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of themes focusing on fifths and fourths and sixths and thirds, just as there are myriads of themes with similar rhythmic profiles.The magic is in the construction of the longer melodic arch. What I hear, is a theme written with great sensibility and musicality, very much in the vein of Yoda's theme or the Force theme...

The theme is vintage Williams melodic construction from beginning to end. It makes an immediate impression, and in only six notes establishes a memorable contour. Also: There's absolutely nothing Giacchino-like about it.

It's a shame you didn't complete the melody with rising up a minor sixth from the G# to the E. That final leap is what balances the last phrase so perfectly...Beautiful theme. And entirely Williams(-esque) from beginning to end. Even when trivialized by a kitschy harmonic progression.

What's interesting about the comparison, is actually just how much better Williams' theme is. On the surface, they're all fairly innocuous, but Williams' little melodic construction seems so much more promising; there's a spark to it that Giacchino's themes lack, and again, I think it's a matter of not only talent, but sculpting. Applied craft & patience.

Let me rephrase: It takes guts to write something so simply when you have the craft to write otherwise. (Having said that, I like much of Zimmer's work, and I think he's written some very effective film music, and his sense of sonic adventure can be delightful at times. But he is of an entirely different tradition; his craft and Williams' are not the same, nor can they be. Zimmer is a symphonic pop composer, Williams is a contemporary classical composer.)

I don't hear all the lyricism and emotional qualities in that you do. You use the word artificial, where I might argue it is too much so. It sounds competent enough to fit into the SW universe, but that's all I'd use to describe it. Competent. Something about the way those opening phrases return to the root strike me as lazy. And the chord progression isn't very inspired to my ears either. I don't need high romance, but I like some intrigue in my themes. The second half of the statement offers more promise. If this is Williams, it's probably too early to make any grand statements, good or bad, without hearing the whole thing, or its application in context. But so far...meh. Beautifully broad, like the old-school tunes of high romance. And it has a gorgeous chord progression to carry it. All I can say is that where you hear lazy, I hear clever melodic writing, and where you hear uninspired harmonic progression, I hear conscious restraint. It takes guts to write something so simply. And I think this is also a current "project" for Williams: To try to get at the core of an idea, to say what's essential, neither more nor less. He expressed such sentiments around the time of Tintin and War Horse, I believe, and they're sentiments quite often found in late work stages of composers. Fluff, color and more chromatically saturated harmonic progressions are easy for a composer of Williams' calibre. Crafting a tune with so few notes and so much elegance, on the other hand, is a true challenge.