The Psycho Pianist

What about this:

There isn't even complete piece of sheet/written music for "Christmas at Hogwarts." The first part of it as presented on the album (the little orchestral prelude for the first 20 seconds) appears midway through 6m1 "Hagrid's Christmas Tree" whilst the next orchestral part fades in from the choral section at about 1:30 and is from 6m2 "Christmas Morning." The middle bit with the ghostly lyrics and the synthy stuff probably won't even have been scored together, just edited together later from separate sessions.

How anyone could still look down their nose at Williams from a classical sensibility after hearing that...I don't know. Sounds like something Sibelius or Finzi would've written if they were still here today.

Yeah damnit, he needs to spend less time developing his ever burgeoning musical palette (which also happens to be the GREATEST musical palette ever devised for a film series) based in visually stunning epic sci-fi films with more characters, thematics and complex action sequences than you could shake a stick at; and spend more time underscoring mundane dialogue scenes in subject-serious dramas. Come on Williams!

That's true. The studio itself has far more of an impact on the sound of the recording in my opinion over any mic setup differences though. Whether or not you use a tree, or a midside or an XY - if you want a brighter sound overall then you're going to record at WB Eastwood rather than the heavier, more serious BS Sony Stage.

I agree there will be slight variations, but all the recordings will feature the usual backbone of the Decca tree and the wide AB setup which is 75% of what you hear in the recording.

Well he may do a rough mix and do as much of it live as he can, but there will always be changes, even if only minor, after the session.

I find it unlikely that the recording setup would wildly differ between different recordings of the same ensemble size in the same studio. Even given different engineers. The difference will be in the mix, made afterwards. Mix in more of the close mics and apply less reverb and you'll get close to that dry sound on TFA; whereas turn those close mics down and go mainly with the stage and Decca tree mics, run it through a Lexicon PCM 90 and you'll be back to the glossy, lush sound from the 90's.

Also this is only for now at Hollywood's HPWW. I always thought that repeated timpani hit in the PoA werewolf cue was perhaps one of the weaker parts of that score.

Simone met JW yesterday in order to present him with the first copy of his CD. Great to see!

Am I missing something or was all of the pre-concert BTS footage from the original HP1 sessions all previously unseen? I've certainly never seen it before, particularly those shots of JW conducting at AIR with the choir up on the balcony?

I love it! Pure, classic Williams. As @Will said earlier, very reminiscent of his writing on HP. Surely Kobe would push for some form of score-only release given he's such a big JW fan?

Apparently it will be posted later this week!

I can't see that anyone's posted about this already, but I just saw that Williams was last night featured on Jim Svejda's Evening Program from 8-11pm talking about the Williams/Spielberg collection. Wondering how you can listen back to KUSC streams as I can't find anything about it on their site - or did anyone happen to record it?

Might I ask what difference it makes if it has been "lopped off" above 27kHz when no human is even capable of hearing any frequencies even close to that figure?

The album is album of the week on Classic FM this week, listed on the site alongside Elgar and Tchaikovsky Not especially big news, but nice to hear every morning anyway!

It's on Spotify! John Williams – John Williams & Steven Spielberg: The Ultimate Collection

Seems like a piece that starts off quietly and slowly, maybe with some solo passages - before building up later on. At least, from what I can see.

No idea if already posted in this thread (probably is!), but I saw this one today which I love. Williams with the Sherman Bros in 1972, whilst scoring Tom Sawyer.

That's hilarious! I also heard a thrilling tidbit from someone high up at Lucasfilm, that when Williams first showed Spielberg his ideas for Raiders of the Lost Ark, he actually had come up with two versions of the main theme. And when he asked Steven which one he liked, he simply said "can't you use both?" And then the latter theme became the bridge to the former's main melody!

What about... Johnny Williams – Johnny Williams. Rhythm in Motion / So Nice! With Johnny Desmond

Getting Out the Vote is awesome. And an excellent performance on that video!

Here is it synced up:

Wow. Just...wow!

At the risk of heckling, I feel like this track has shades of Lincoln (in regards to @Not Mr. Big's question)