Dixon Hill

Concealed within his fortress, the lord of Remote Control Productions sees all. His influence pierces comic book movies, crime dramas, scifi thrillers, and... fantasies.
He is gathering all sound to him. Very soon he will have summoned an army great enough to launch an assault upon Middle-Earth.

Just listen to her talk about the inner workings of a cathode-ray television.

I've been thinking on starting a thread about old and folkloric music from around the world. It's become a surprisingly large part of what I listen to.

My understanding is he considers his work more of a craft. I don't think he has a "Eureka - that's it" moment while working but rather works very hard to refine it and is self critical so when it passes his self assessment (which is a struggle given the high standards), then it will have all the Williamsims that we know and love and like all great works, will have a sense of inevitability when one hears it that it couldn't have been any other way. I once asked one of his kids if they recall any moments where he came out of his study/office screaming "Wow, I just nailed this...Eureka, come and listen!" and the response was that it was more like he was just at work and there seemed to be just focus, intent effort rather than a sense of "this will be my great work" meanwhile these masterworks were being created. Don, his brother, said of JW that his idea of a fun relaxing evening was working. When going on vacation, he'd have a piano brought in to their hotel while the family is out at the pool...that was just how he would relax. The sense I got was that it was a job he did very well and cared about the quality of his work deeply and thoroughly, but he was just doing his thing - putting great effort - no lazy bone in his body (or mind), and he has been at it a very long time so has a good sense if something is going to work or not before putting in the work. Conrad Pope once said he's never seen anyone attack a musical problem as hard as JW does when working and this is the same sense I hear from many others.
With that said, I don't consider JW the modern equal of Mozart. Apologies if this was already covered earlier in the thread, but here are some differences:
1. Mozart was a revolutionary composer; Williams is ultimately a composer who looks to the past mostly. Mozart had tremendous impact on the course of western music with greater role of dynamics, duration, orchestration, drama, form, intensity, etc. He laid the groundwork for Beethoven and the end of the Classical period as it shifted to Romantic. In contrast, I view JW as the last of a line of craft oriented composers who were well studied, hard workers, but ultimately brilliant because of their work quality, ethic, and practical training since he's from the tradition of Korngold, Herrmann, Mancini, Goldsmith, Bernstein, etc.
2. I believe Mozart might have been a high functioning aspergers/autistic person. His musical memory of other people's music is not normal. I don't have evidence for this and since his body isn't found and there aren't descendants to positively match DNA with, I doubt we'll ever know for sure other than through anecdotal evidence if this hunch is true.
3. To Mozart, composition came easily saying: " got to write at breakneck speed—everything's composed—but not written yet." whereas JW is a craftsman who takes care of each note and idea. Mozart might have had ADD, and OCD whereas JW is a workaholic. The end result is two great but different composers.

Maybe he's using UJam.

Hell of a good birthday wish though.

I'll once again point to the entire Moria sequence here. Many of the highlights from FotR are to be found there, played deftly by the NZSO. I don't think there's anything to worry about. What might bother me more than any difference in ensemble is the difference in engineers - AUJ had a very close, over-produced kind of sound compared to the original scores. I want that more "archaic" sound that Shore talks about in Doug's book back.

I'll once again point to the entire Moria sequence here. Many of the highlights from FotR are to be found there, played deftly by the NZSO. I don't think there's anything to worry about. What might bother me more than any difference in ensemble is the difference in engineers - AUJ had a very close, over-produced kind of sound compared to the original scores. I want that more "archaic" sound that Shore talks about in Doug's book back.

I'll once again point to the entire Moria sequence here. Many of the highlights from FotR are to be found there, played deftly by the NZSO. I don't think there's anything to worry about. What might bother me more than any difference in ensemble is the difference in engineers - AUJ had a very close, over-produced kind of sound compared to the original scores. I want that more "archaic" sound that Shore talks about in Doug's book back.

I'll once again point to the entire Moria sequence here. Many of the highlights from FotR are to be found there, played deftly by the NZSO. I don't think there's anything to worry about. What might bother me more than any difference in ensemble is the difference in engineers - AUJ had a very close, over-produced kind of sound compared to the original scores. I want that more "archaic" sound that Shore talks about in Doug's book back.

I'll once again point to the entire Moria sequence here. Many of the highlights from FotR are to be found there, played deftly by the NZSO. I don't think there's anything to worry about. What might bother me more than any difference in ensemble is the difference in engineers - AUJ had a very close, over-produced kind of sound compared to the original scores. I want that more "archaic" sound that Shore talks about in Doug's book back.

I would say only time will tell if the NZSO will sound different to LPO performing this music (well of course they do as they are a different orchestra but is it too noticeable or to the detriment of the Middle Earth sound). LPO is Shore's favourite orchestra and longest orchestra collaboration no doubt and he does know them and their strengths and weaknesses very well but with him doing the orchestration (I am rather convinced Pope is just doing some assisting and conducting) and supervising the sessions I am quite confident that the sound of Middle Earth will be intact.

Same here. Fantasia's my favourite Disney movie, closely followed by Dumbo.

The Pit and the Pendulum is my favourite of the Corman/Poe films. Good score by Les Baxter, too.
Another one: Candyman.

This is incredible.

Here it is in a more forgiving acoustic.

Giacinto Scelsi - Hymnos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1n-DQonQhs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nhwnX5dv_Q
Utterly sublime.

Topic title edited for general mental and physical well being of JWFan (the original gave me a near heart attack when I first read it).

FotR has better storytelling and better development of themes than AUJ. Also FotR is much more diverse in the musical colours of its palette. It's more nuanced as a whole, with more intelligent subtleties in the music, and the music for the different locations are more easily distinctive, and the emotional material is far more substantial (ex. the choral material for Boromir, the operatic solos, etc). Finally, FotR has better themes/motifs as a whole.
It's as the Messenger said:

I think there are much more frightening and important things tied to the younger generations' attention deficit than the ability to enjoy older films.
I guess you're a thirtysomething like me and many others here, filmmusic. So let me ask you this question: how many people of your age do you know that are able to enjoy a D.W. Griffith silent movie, a Mack Sennett or a Buster Keaton gag reel as much as they enjoy watching, say, Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark or Pulp Fiction? I'm sure very, very few of them. I'm also sure a lot of thirtysomethings have never seen early Hitchcock films or Casablanca or even Citizen Kane. And if they did, they probably don't like them as much as Back to the Future or Ghostbusters.
What does this mean? It means that film history and film language will continue to be studied and analyzed in the future as much as they have been, hence great classic movies of the past (from silents to contemporary) will always be part of the cultural baggage of anyone who wants to understand this kind of artform. It's like being afraid that teens in the 1960s would not have been able to enjoy and understand a Beethoven symphony in their adulthood because back then they were only listening to Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
What probably will be different is that maybe films like E.T. or The Godfather will not be huge "pop culture" items anymore (esp. for the teenagers/young adults), but they will be more part of the cinematic culture of people interested in film history. But again, pop culture lives very much on contemporary things, on what is cool and hip at that specific moment in history.

Yes, the majority of films will be forgotten but I firmly believe that true greatness transcends generations.

And now happy birthday to RVW.

If Messiaen is coming, that's impressive because he's been dead for 21 years.
I really hope there will be SOME sort of recording of this.