SteveMc

My entertainment for tonight:
 
 

That's what she said. And it's not surprising as he wrote last years's concert piece Markings for her.
 
I quite like her Schindler's List performance here:
 

Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones (Complete Edit) by John Williams: Man I love this score. Sure it is quite departure from the usual Star Wars with all the percussion and purely kinetic action and whatnot but to my ears it all has aged really well and the Across the Stars love theme is nothing to sneer at.
 
Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith (Complete Edit) by John Williams

Confessedly, I've been listening to Ice Age music today and I didn't even know it was his birthday! I don't really keep up with birthdays when it's not my own!  
But happy b-day to one of my faves! I've barely stopped listening to Solo and Hubris, and only don't listen to them even more because I don't want to drive grandpa crazy. 
Great choice by the way, crocodile! Horton's a top shelf work of his for me.
 

I'm in for the Tribute to MacQueen. Le Mans = 😍

What an amazing concert this was!  When Michel Legrand shuffled out onto the stage at the beginning he looked every one of his 86 years, but he played the piano with the virtuosity of a genius half his age.  A big screen above the stage showed clips from each of the films featured as the music was played, starting with a lengthy action sequence from Ice Station Zebra, a very bold and unusual way to begin the concert.
 
Legrand either conducted or played the piano for every piece, Paul Bateman ably stepping up to conduct when the composer was tinkling the ivories.  I do not know Michel Legrand's work as well as I should do, Gable and Lombard and Picasso Summer being two such examples from the first half - both were brilliant.  The audience gave him an immediate standing ovation at the end of the concert, prompting him to return to the piano to play Brian's Song as an encore.
 
The Tribute to Steve McQueen at the end was fantastic.  The music he wrote for Le Mans is really too cool for school. 😎

Speaking of Reich, my current muse:
 

Guess we know you haven't bothered to read the trumpet concerto Kickstarter thread!
 
 
Hale and hearty

West Side Story! 
 
Let's pray JW does the score, and not Alan Silvestri or Thomas Newman!

The film has often been criticized for being too maudlin, but I disagree. Rather, I think Spielberg was going for the same type of melodrama that Victor Fleming nurtured in the original A GUY NAMED JOE (Spielberg also channeled Fleming beautifully in WAR HORSE, and the ending of BRIDGE OF SPIES is pure Howard Hawks -- I love it when he makes these tributes to his Golden Age heroes). The lush cinematography by Mikael Salomon is beautiful -- alternating between nocturnal blue and ravishing orange.
 
Interestingly, I hated the ALWAYS score initially. Before I got the soundtrack, I only had the two tracks on the FILMWORKS compilation, and I thought the rest of the score was like that. To my amazement I discovered that "Follow Me" and "Dorinda Solo Flight" were, indeed, the only really thematic pieces on the album, and the rest was mostly 'droney', textural stuff with glittering harps and directionless harmonic structures. Remember, this was the time I was into big theme Williams (mid 90s)! However, as I've grown older and more refined in my taste, I've come to appreciate it for the exploratory tone poem that it really is. These days, I really enjoy the soundtrack -- although I could be without the country songs and the hundred variations of "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes".

Ok, some thoughts on ALWAYS. I saw it in America, on its first night.
I watched it at a very "emotional" time of my life, and the theme of not being able to connect, coupled with the idea of people moving on, and eventually forgetting the past, resonated with me. I've changed over the years, and as I've changed as a person, my attitude towards the film has, also changed. I now see it as a good, funny, technically very well-made, simple story about enduring love. It brings warm feelings to my heart, whenever I watch it. Its a good "autumnal" film.
As Dorinda transcended her relationship with Pete, I have transcended both my original circumstances, and my reaction to the film. A more "stable" me, is able to kick back and enjoy it.
I'm going to stick my neck out by saying that I prefer ALWAYS to the Spielberg films either side of it.
In precis: its not the best film our Steve has done, but it's not the worst, either, and I truly think that, with ALWAYS, Spielberg has nothing to be ashamed of.
Plus, any - any - film with Roberts Blossom, is immediately watchable.

Born on the Fourth of July and Superman, then.  As ethnically American as you can get.
 
As for "ethnic" scores, little can top Far And Away.

SUPERMAN. Sublime. Just sublime. There's no other way I can describe this score. I'm approaching JONATHAN'S DEATH. Oh, those basses!

JANE EYRE; Its so damned English!

Answer to the thread question:
The only thing I've ever wanted to hear live was PRELUDE AND MAIN TITLE - album version - from SUPERMAN.
I've yet to hear it...

I want nothing to do with a game made by people who'd put in an attempted rape scene to "make the player want to protect her".
 
Fuck that tripe.

Hell yeah he shines there. Warm, tender, passionate, portentous, powerful and solid, all in one piece. 
 
When I first listened to it l liked to imagine a king ruled by his own self-importance, out of touch with his subjects. Then when a massacre befalls his kingdom, he sees the corpses wheeled off in large barrows, and begins to recognize the depth of his folly. He wanders through his massive castle, lamenting his carelessness, and agonizes over a way to right his wrongdoings. 
 
I guess that imagery came easily because the movement has it all: regal, mournful, bittersweet, triumphant...damn, Williams hit it hard.

I hear the whole concerto as this great tribute to the traditional (American/European) flavors of the trumpet.  Looking at the wide over-simplified view of the work: the heraldic opening movement, the bluesy lyrical second, and the trumpet as vehicle of wild, rhythmic complexity in the third (which sounds the most like how he sometimes uses the trumpet in his film action music to my ears).  And then even within the movements, Williams calls for the performer to use radically different voicings and timbres often in quick succession.  I find Sandoval's playing on that album to be a bit monochromatic, lacking the variety of style and color that I think Williams was asking for. 
 
It's a seriously virtuosic trumpet showcase, maybe Sandoval was just having a bad day  

There's nothing inherently wrong with it, it's not like there are flubbed notes or anything.  The performance is just not to my taste and I don't think it showcases what I love about Williams' writing for this piece.  The Harjanne performance is excellent, but a recording conducted by Williams and recorded in an actual studio will almost certainly supercede that album for me.
 
 
I think the piece calls for a subtler touch, personally.  Sandoval is like a bull in a chinashop on that recording for me.  Not to disrespect Sandoval generally of course, he's a great artist.
 
(awaiting Thor to let us all know once again that the Sandoval recording is great and there's no reason to listen to any other)

This is also the first real, honest-to-God STUDIO recording of a Williams concert piece in many years.  Lots of live recordings in the meantime of course.
 
SO. EXCITING.
 
 
Yes!  Like Gershwin if he lived to become a modernist or something.

I'm pumped to hear how he does the second movement, which is in my shortlist of top pieces of music ever.

I really cannot thank you enough for making this project happen.  Not only to have a new recording of my favorite Williams concerto featuring one of our finest trumpet players, but conducted by the Maestro himself.... I must be in heaven!
 
Judging by your performance of the first movement with the Marine Band, I know we're all in for a real treat.
 
 
Is this largely the same orchestra that recorded the new Spielberg/Williams volume in 2016?
 

This is a little different but maybe "West Side Story" will be interesting if JW arranges. 

I would have loved for JW at some point to have been involved in a musical with the kind of "big" big band arrangements we see in Anything Goes. Like, imagine what he would have done had he arranged the music for a film version of "An American in Paris". He's so great at that kind of thing but it feels like we haven't seen enough of that side of him.