Salacius

Just got my disc yesterday. Initially I thought , ‘what a lovely score’. Light and brilliant at the first half for the obvious reasons, dark on the second half. I thought the battle music was handled fantastically and there is a bit on track 9 I think where it’s the heaviest I heard Williams write in years.
And then track 19 kicked in. And something happened when the piano theme came on.
It proceeded to the string part of the same theme, and then it came back in the end of ‘The Homecoming’.
At that point my chest cracked open and my heart was ripped out. Bloody hell, what a wonderful, lovely theme!!!
It was imbedded in my brain (and still is) for the rest of the day within seconds after hearing it.
Absolutely stunning. It just felt like ‘it was meant to be’.
This guy just never ceases to amaze me.

Actually , I never heard a track thinking, "it's too fast", "too slow" or "too sloppy" from Williams, conducting his own music or otherwise.
I think he has a unique way of bringing at least his own music to life and always seems to be getting the best out of the orchestra.
To me these are attributes of a great conductor.

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That would be a great tagline for the new films.

(EDIT: I will reupload it once I've corrected several small errors I noticed).

THIS...
They are totally different. The only real similarity is that they both have a magical quality. John Williams writes for the film what fits the best. He does not actively seek out to write extensions of ideas from one film for another totally unrelated film with a totally unrelated story. It doesn't work that way. However, magical in his mind is something that he seems to have a clear idea for. That texture is going to be similar. His thematic material comes down to what works dramatically. His goal is inevitability, which he accomplishes about 98% of the time.

1/ John Williams,
2/ Jerry Glodsmith,
3/ The rest.

Top 3:
1. Williams
2. Goldsmith
3. Horner
Followed by:
- Shore
- Silvestri
- Elfman
- Barry
- Conti
- Jones
- Arnold
- and more

well, i understood it like:
self-taught= person who just learned to play and compose by experience but he doesn't really know what he's playing/composing and can't read/write music
and ok, that "5 year old", i took it as a way of speech.. Did Williams start from 5 years old?
edit: ok, I found it. He started from 7.

Well, if he knows music, he certainly knows how to hide it well!
(except for a very few exceptions)

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We really miss that man.

I just listened to the end of E.T. and concluded that Williams is not as good as the most enthusiastic fanboy says. He's better.

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