Score

LolIt's a HUGE deal.

Limited to film music, my favourite single piece is probably "Luke and Leia", although it is a concert piece. If we mean literally "film music" as "music used in the film", then I would probably pick the whole ending sequence of E.T. . If we extend to ALL kinds of music, for me it is impossible to narrow it down to a single piece. Maybe, just for the sake of the game, I would say Beethoven's 9th symphony, for the musical quality, its message and its role in the history of music. But so much music has been written, with such different scopes and features... just think of Beethoven's 5th symphony (plus, for example, most of his piano sonatas and string quartets), Tchaikovsky's 6th (plus 4th, 5th and some other orchestral works such as Francesca da Rimini and the ballets), Mahler's 5th and 6th, or pieces such as Chopin's Ballades, Wagner's Ring Tetralogy (at least, parts of it!), Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Rachmaninov's piano concerto n.3, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, Bartok's "music for strings, celesta and percussion", Janacek's Glagolitic Mass, Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, and I could go on forever (also including Bach, Handel, Mozart, Schubert and many others)... how can one pick a single "best" piece?

Not to mention Jar Jar, the single character that spoiled the myth of Star Wars for me. Even the aliens at the court of Jabba and a squid admiral in ROTJ had their dignity, but this one...

Good God... how is that achieved? Shame Hans didn't use that technique in INTERSTELLAR, or maybe he did. To put it simply, Ligeti is a magician. If you look at this video, you can follow the score:

Ah, and "Yub Nub" from ROTJ. Wonderful orchestrations, magical harmonies and virtuosistic vocal writing. Absolutely essential.

Yeah, definitely - this should be given the priority over all the rest.

Among the modern, I would mention Olivier Messiaen, who wrote quite a lot for organ and was an organist himself (though I admire him mostly for some orchestral works, such as the Turangalila symphony), and G. Ligeti ("Ricercare", the mighty "Volumina", and two studies). There is also this concerto by Poulenc: Also, going back to the Baroque period, Handel wrote some impressive Organ Concertos (op. 4, op.7 and some others). Also, I think Pachelbel is considered a master of this medium, although I am not familiar with his works.

Also, a set of cues from the Indiana Jones trilogy, such as "March of the Slave Children" and "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra".

A new set of cues from the Star Wars saga, including the complete Battle of Yavin and complete Battle of Hoth, Binary Sunset, the Finale from Attack of the Clones, some concert pieces like "Han Solo and the Princess", "Jabba the Hutt", "The Little People"... ah, who am I kidding... But seriously, there are some scores by Williams whose complete release would not be so problematic. Scores like Schindler's List and, for example, Presumed Innocent cannot be to large. In Schindler's List there are much more gems than the three pieces which are available now.

This rather famous aria is from the opera "Gianni Schicchi", a small (in the sense of short - less than one hour) masterpiece of humour, both in the text and in the music, and the only comic opera written by Puccini, who is my favourite opera composer. If you are interested in the whole opera, here it is (with English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRGe9FfLtdY I completely agree. She is one of the very best "Mozartian" pianists. Check out also the piano concerto in d minor, I think she is very close to the ideal of the "perfect performer", at least as far as Mozart is concerned. Something different: Luciano Berio's "Sinfonia", one of the strangest compositions that I have ever heard!

Thanks! Never heard these Barber pieces before ... and I really like his violin concerto: Yes, I also like it, especially the second and the third movements. Also the essays for orchestra are very beautiful. But my favourite among his compositions is probably "Prayers of Kierkegaard". These are on my to-do list!

Some amazing works by Samuel Barber (the list could go on)... Prayers of Kierkegaard (this is simply epic!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kemoCE4jaxw Piano Concerto (one of the best of the 20th century): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCWGzCEaDo8 Piano Sonata (the last movement, an extremely virtuosistic Fugue, is one of my favourite piano pieces in general):

Happy Birthday, genius!

Really? The bassoon concerto (The Five Sacred Trees) is my favourite concert work of Williams -- by FAR! It doesn't work for me. I know it is a favourite of many fans, I am sure also Williams is very proud of that piece, also in relation with his source of inspiration, but I don't find it very interesting from the point of view of orchestration (at least, I much prefer both violin concertos). Also, there is something about these musical phrases with big melodic "jumps", which Williams uses so often in his concert music, that for me does not sound nice on the bassoon. I don't think there is some objective point to it, it's probably just my taste.

(http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/williams-treesong-violin-concerto-3-pieces-from-schindlers-list) I feel a bit like that ("better to arrive than to journey") about some other concert pieces by Williams, like the flute and the trumpet concertos, and I'm also not a big fan of the tuba and bassoon concertos. I somehow understand what the guy is saying, and I have found myself thinking similarly in some occasions. But I certainly don't feel like that about the first Violin Concerto and Treesong, which are my two favourite concert works by Williams together with Soundings (that is, excluding the suites from the film scores). Treesong is very evocative, with a wonderful and very original orchestration and nice harmonic colours almost at every bar, from the beginning to the end.

To be exact Jane Eyre sheet music wasn't lost in a fire. It was simply dumped to the trash by the studio as the insurance people thought all the sheet music in their storages was a huge fire hazard. I also remembered (wrongly) that it was due to an accidental fire, but reality is even more stupid than the legends, apparently. Complete lack of brain.

I don't hear it...honestly The vocal melody from 1:09 to 1:32 is almost identical to the WHOLE theme of the End Titles from Jaws which is played first by the Piccolo and then by woodwinds and horns. There are only a few rhytmic differences and of course the key is different (D major for Jaws, A major for the Michael Jackson song). It's a known case of possible plagiarism (as it has been mentioned, the song came out many years after John Williams' score).

The first piece is by Broughton (up to about 1:20), the second piece is by Newman (see the credits at the end, appearing at 3:03).

Yes, but the Finale of AotC is probably the best single cue in the prequels.

I cannot wait! For some reasons, I am expecting the best work on this CD to be the one by Don Davis.

I am curious to see if the Main Titles will still begin with the famous fanfare that opened all the other movies of the franchise, or if John will surprise us with something different and in this way mark the beginning of a new cycle...

I'm definitely in for the Shore ones (and wouldn't mind seeing a complete reissue of SOTL with remastered sound, chronological order and unreleased music as well, by the way). And speaking of Horner... how about TITANIC!!! It is one of the very few scores by Horner that I also would like to see, despite everything. And anything by Goldsmith would be great!

twice? i see it only in the basses.. Oh, maybe you mean in the full orchestra version? I don't have it in front of me right now. Yes, I mean in the full orchestra version.

I completely agree with you. I have also wondered about this chord, I also prefer E natural as in the OST, I also suspect that it might have been just a mistake in the SE and Williams overlooked it in the performance, as strange as this may be. E flat just sounds out of place here. The only doubt that I have is due to the fact that E flat occurs twice in bar 5 (in the contrabasses and in the lowest-register section of the second violins) and so, if it was an error, it was done twice. But anything can be. If I had to conduct it, I think I would ask violins and basses to play C natural! If it is an error, it would not be the first time that SE mistakes naturals for flats, there are at least two examples occurring in Jurassic Park Main Theme (bar 5, last note of the first flute, this is "big"!) and in Star Wars (bar 52, piano RH, first chord, the C should be natural).

Indeed, nobody has asked you to steal any information and post it here, as far as I know. So: just don't do it. I don't see the problem. As it has already been agreed, a great part of the information present in this page is publicly available from Omni Music releases or Libraries' websites, or some legal CD releases.