Score
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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?
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The problem with the prequels is that they skip over the actual most important events that take place during their time frame (Anakin training with Obi Wan, Anakin being officially Knighted as a Jedi Knight, hows and whys and important events of The Clone Wars instead of just 1 battle, etc) - and then give unsatisfactory versions of other major events (Anakin deciding to turn to the dark side and his first evil deeds, Anakin and Obi Wan's final duel, Padme's death).
On top of that, including characters such as R2, 3P0, Boba Fett, Chewbacca, Yoda, and Owen and Beru was completely pointless.
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...
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Just re-listening to Grey's organ superpost.
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:
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Ah, and "Yub Nub" from ROTJ. Wonderful orchestrations, magical harmonies and virtuosistic vocal writing. Absolutely essential.
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"Mambone" from BACHELOR FLAT.
Yeah, definitely - this should be given the priority over all the rest.
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After Bach, there's a bit of a gap. The instrument was more of a continuo member than a prominent solo vehicle until the so-called Romantic period came into swing. At this point, it's all about the French. Saint-Saëns, Franck, Widor, Vierne, Dubois, Gigout, Dupre, and then later on, Langlais, Duruflé, Cochereau. Simultaneous with those earlier dudes, you had German folks like Reger who were continuing a sort of neo-classical trend. Jongen, Liszt, Mahler, and Strauss also wrote for it either solo or in orchestral contexts.
The contemporary scene is mysterious to me. I struggle to think of any notable modern composers for the organ but I'll keep trying. It's more of a patchy situation where good pieces crop up every now and then from all corners. There is a great wealth of orchestral transcription literature though. I posted some of those on the last page I believe, played on the best suited organ for that in the world.
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.
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Also, a set of cues from the Indiana Jones trilogy, such as "March of the Slave Children" and "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra".
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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.
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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 really love Mitsuko Uchida's Mozart piano sonatas.
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!
- Sharkissimo and Bespin
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Some amazing works by Samuel Barber (the list could go on)...
Prayers of Kierkegaard (this is simply epic!):
Piano Concerto (one of the best of the 20th century):
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".
His Cello Concerto is also amazing. If you haven't don so, you should check out his cello sonata. That second movement is lovely.
These are on my to-do list!
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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):
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Happy Birthday, genius!
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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.
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.
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The dancing central panel of TreeSong climaxes in that bracing‚ minimalistic sounding music so associated now with open space. It’s the music of vaulting ambition‚ achievement‚ the homerun. But without the moving pictures. When ‘The Tree Sings’ in the final panel it does so at length. This is the most beautiful and welldirected music in the piece – meaning that in Williams’ case it is sometimes better to arrive than to journey. There is a tendency here towards a little too much of what I would call ‘musical grouting’. It’s almost as if freedom for Williams is too much of a good thing. The music begins to lose identity and focus. One starts to crave the quick fixes of his movie work. I particularly felt this with the earlier piece – the Violin Concerto of 1974 – where a few too many yards of toccatalike workingout (Prokofiev and Bartók without their imperative) prove less purposeful‚ less interesting than Williams might think.
(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.
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Nah I am sure all the sheet music survives. JW has a collection of all his scores at his house, for one thing. The only sheets we know are lost are his oldest stuff, plus Jane Eyre that got lost in a fire. Dracula should be fine.
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.
Boston Globe: The Music Man - Richard Dyer - 1990
Another prominent presence in Williams' living room is a long row of leatherbound pencil sketches and scores for most of the films he has composed; it stretches all the way across one wall. "It's been a working life," Williams says, without exaggeration. "Even though the point is speed, writing music for films is a very time-consuming thing. I sometimes think to succeed it's just as important to be strong as it is to be good. It's a lot to turn out 10 to 15 minutes of music for full orchestra every week."
Williams acknowledges, "There's even more music upstairs, spilling out of filing cabinets, but even so I don't have all of it -- the early stuff is probably better off lost. It's probably immodest of me to save all of this, but always in my ear, I hear the voice of my colleague and friend Bernard Herrmann, who wrote so many great scores for Hitchcock, and he said, 'Keep your music. You can't trust anyone else to.' And as usual, Benny was right.
"Did you know that the whole great MGM music library is gone? Sometime in the '70s, an insurance inspector came along and wondered what all that dangerous-looking yellow molding paper stuff was doing lying around, and it was destroyed -- not only the orchestral scores like 'Dr. Zhivago' but also the great musicals. The only way they are preserved is on the sound tracks, and if you want to perform those arrangements, you have to listen to them and write them down. I had to do that myself when I wanted to pull out my music for 'Jane Eyre' for the Pops. It had been burned, so I just sat right here with the record and listened to it over and over and copied it by ear. Even last year when I wanted to do the fugue from 'Jaws,' I had to reconstruct it. So there's a point to keeping all of this."
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.
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John Williams clearly ripped off the End Title (Theme From 'Jaws') from Michael Jackson:
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).
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Hmm... sounds like the Newman piece, yeah?
Fantastic! Thanks, Koray!
Yes, the music playing sounds like something Newman would write. I hear rag-time influences.
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).
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I'm up to the last act of Attack of the Clones.
Some quick thoughts:
Phantom is a good score. It is easily the strongest of the three and few people will debate that. I still don't think it's on the level of the original scores.
Clones is an extremely low-key score, especially for being Star Wars. As I recall of the film, it is very (shitty) dialogue heavy and the music is just kinda there, rarely drawing attention to istelf, but serving some purpose. It actually reminds me a lot of Star Trek TV scoring in the 90s.
More to come...
Yes, but the Finale of AotC is probably the best single cue in the prequels.
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I cannot wait! For some reasons, I am expecting the best work on this CD to be the one by Don Davis.
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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...
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Since it's been pretty much established that Williams and Morricone scores are off-limits,
The Lord of the Rings (Shore) - I can dream, can't I?
Apollo 13 (Horner) - I'd love even just to see "The Launch" and "Master Alarm."
The Silence of the Lambs (Shore)
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!
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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.
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.
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Someone might be interested in this:
Dartmoor from WAR HORSE for String Orchestra from the offiicial Hal Leonard youtube channel:
I still don't know what is the original version of the first theme.
Look at (and listen to) bar 5, 2nd chord. There is an Eb.(C minor chord)
In the ost, film and piano sheet music that is a natural E. (C major chord)
In the full score signature edition, in the performance by Williams in 2012 with the Boston Pops and as it seems in this arrangement too, it's Eb.
I like the natural E much better. What do you think?
I was thinking maybe the Eb was a mistake originally in the signature edition, and Williams overlooked it in his performance?
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).
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Score:
I appreciate your input on this, but Jay and I are now discussing this matter in private.
However, I will tell you this much:
Leaked = illegal, no matter what label you assign it.
I will not steal information and post it as a form of prestige.
I always go through the proper channels to get my information out of academic integrity.
I hope you understand my position on this.
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.
RUMOR: Williams has already written 3 reels of The Force Awakens
in JOHN WILLIAMS
Posted
It's a HUGE deal.