Pawel P.

Live concert with this music from Katowice (Poland) on the internet now.

Selling 100k physical copies of anything in this day and age is kind of a miniature miracle. Kudos to DG for creating momentum among fans about this, but the success is not only due to marketing strategy—it speaks about the value of JW’s music and its place among a great amount of people across the globe. It’s one of the defining signs that JW’s music transcends the boundaries of soundtrack or even just movie fans. It’s just great music, plain and simple, that will live for centuries to come, just like the works of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev...
 
It may be look like I’m preaching to the choir here saying such things, but I honestly think we’ve been witnessing an historical moment in terms of change of perception of JW’s music.

according to Norman Lebrecht
https://slippedisc.com/2020/12/anything-i-ever-said-about-john-williams-and-the-vienna-philharmonic/
 
cheers! 

Congratulations Maestro! 
 
BEST SCORE SOUNDTRACK FOR VISUAL MEDIA
Ad Astra, Max Richter
Becoming, Kamasi Washington
Joker, Hildur Guðnadóttir
1917, Thomas Newman
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, John Williams
 
https://www.etonline.com/2021-grammy-awards-nominations-the-full-list-156517
https://www.grammy.com/grammys/awards/63rd-annual-grammy-awards-2020
 
This is Williams' 72nd nomination - he has a chance to win the his 26th statuette. He has as many nominations as Henry Mancini now. Only Quincy Jones (80), Paul McCartney (78), Jay Z (77), Georg Solti (74) and Stevie Wonder (74) have more.

Congratulations Maestro! 
 
BEST SCORE SOUNDTRACK FOR VISUAL MEDIA
Ad Astra, Max Richter
Becoming, Kamasi Washington
Joker, Hildur Guðnadóttir
1917, Thomas Newman
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, John Williams
 
https://www.etonline.com/2021-grammy-awards-nominations-the-full-list-156517
https://www.grammy.com/grammys/awards/63rd-annual-grammy-awards-2020
 
This is Williams' 72nd nomination - he has a chance to win the his 26th statuette. He has as many nominations as Henry Mancini now. Only Quincy Jones (80), Paul McCartney (78), Jay Z (77), Georg Solti (74) and Stevie Wonder (74) have more.

Take a look at this!
 
New concert piece, Percussive Planet, written for Martin Grubinger? It looks like it  Some time ago there were rumors that Williams could write something for him and it happened.  The premiere will take place on June 26! Of course with the Berliner Philharmoniker!
 
https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concerts/calendar/details/53181/

Take a look at this!
 
New concert piece, Percussive Planet, written for Martin Grubinger? It looks like it  Some time ago there were rumors that Williams could write something for him and it happened.  The premiere will take place on June 26! Of course with the Berliner Philharmoniker!
 
https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concerts/calendar/details/53181/

Take a look at this!
 
New concert piece, Percussive Planet, written for Martin Grubinger? It looks like it  Some time ago there were rumors that Williams could write something for him and it happened.  The premiere will take place on June 26! Of course with the Berliner Philharmoniker!
 
https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concerts/calendar/details/53181/

In a BBC Radio 4 interview from this morning, John Williams mentions that he "[hopes] to be in Berlin in October conducting the orchestra". Is this the first we have heard of a potential concert with what sounds like the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra?? What do you make of this? Interview starts at 7:40am (1h40min in) but JW mentions Berlin at 7:44am, (1h44min in)? 
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000ph3t 
 
If this is to be true and the vaccines are here to enable us to see concerts again, it is amazing to hear JW is still able and willing to work!! 

He now sits alongside Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Bernstein, Sibelius and more...
 
There's an intro by Spielberg and we get to see Williams, impeccably classy as ever.
 
https://royalphilharmonicsociety.org.uk/awards/gold-medal/john-williams
 
1 Hour 6min mark:
 
 
 

The Battle of Jakku took place in 5 ABY, a year after the Battle of Endor.
The Mandalorian begins in 9 ABY, five years after the events of Return of the Jedi 
 
Almost perfect episode! I give it 9.5/10.

Sounds very promising. 

https://www.fpa.es/en/princess-of-asturias-awards/laureates/2020-ennio-morricone-and-john-williams.html?texto=discurso&especifica=0

Here.
 
I'm over the moon!
 
Karol

I'll revive this thread to say that I sure do hope JW writes something for one more Olympic Games. Paris '24 or L.A. '28, either one. I've been listening to the four themes he wrote (for '84, '88, '96 and '02) and I think my fave right now is '02. But goddam, they are ALL incredible.I have to imagine there are composers who'd give their left nut to lay claim to any one of them, let alone all four. What a miracle of a human being this man is.

If I understood this review right, the bottom line is that it's not good because it can't be good. I don't care what the status of this critic is, whether he is great, legendary, influential. Why should we care? He is simply unprofessional.

Williams has assured many times that he will never retire or withdraw from music, so at least we don't have to be afraid of that. If his health allows him, of course. I'll be happy if he writes two or three more scores for movies that he finds interesting. I don't really believe (I'd like to be wrong) that Indy 5 will be among them.
 
But look, this is Williams, he surprised us many times, didn't he? Who knows, maybe we have another wonderful decade ahead of us with cool musical projects, including film scores? And remember that Anne-Sophie Mutter is many things, but what she is not is a woman you can say 'no' to. And she certainly won't let the Maestro out of her hands.

Right. I’m not expecting a thing, especially while we’re in a pandemic. I honestly still can’t believe our luck that he finished Star Wars in time, not to mention he was already an old fuckin man anyway when he committed to a 5 year project. 
 
It’s great to know that he’s writing his own music as we speak and so we have certainly not heard the last from John Williams. But if he does another film score, it’s clearly not gonna be before he’s 90. Every one going forward will be a miracle to me and he’s already been beating the odds as it is. I’m grateful for an unexpectedly amazing 2010s. I absolutely did not see him being this prolific and I was frankly biting my nails the whole way through every time a new project was announced. 
 
Now, that epic marathon is over and the film and music industry have gone into slow motion, if not at a total standstill, while time marches on as ever. It would be awesome to be looking back again at more great work when we’re approaching his 100th bday. I’m not celebrating until I at least know a score has been composed.
 
When War Horse and Tintin came out just before his 80th, my entire perspective shifted on this. I was so happy to have those two and I felt like that was a really full meal, like wow, how lucky. 9 years later I feel like The BFG at Buckingham Palace.

Yes, unquestionably.

Saw it yesterday. It has such a complicated plot that it's difficult to follow it at times. I liked it very much, although it didn't affect me emotionally as much as Inception and Interstellar.
 
My review (in Polish). Spoiler free.
https://kultura.onet.pl/film/recenzje/tenet-recenzja-filmu-christophera-nolana-miesza-nam-w-glowach/ldm0gvb
 
Score is very loud, intense, rhythmic and clinically close to the film. It reminds me of Dunkirk at times. A lot of electronics. Besides, industrial and dubstep elements...

30 or 40 percent wrong? How wrong? What do you mean? The only thing you can stick to in the flub/misatke category is the several seconds of the Main Title from Star Wars, which doesn't sound so terrible to tell you the truth - the rest, such as the slightly slower pace of Out to the Sea and Shark Cage Fugue and The Raider's March are the question of Williams' subjective choice.
 
Both Viennese concerts are legendary, despite the fact that they took place only six months ago, and the blu-ray is only a confirmation of this.  I've been to both concerts and now I've seen it at home three times, I've also listened to the CD a couple of times. And I couldn't be happier.

That does not show up for me on the Apple Music US Store. I can follow the link and see it, but when I add it to my library, it does not play. Odd.
 
 
 
 
Thanks for your notes. I was not at the concerts, so I was seeing the performance for the first time. I watched about a quarter of it today (my deluxe edition arrived yesterday from Presto Music).
 
A few additional thoughts on the video and my playback set up. I'm watching on an Oppo 4K Blu-Ray, connected through a Denon receiver with Dolby Atmos. LG 4K (2019 model) for the video playback. The LG is doing the upsampling from 1080i. B&W 600 series speakers.
 
I dislike the smoothing of modern TVs, so I have that turned off. The result is the filmic quality described earlier in this thread. You can definitely spot the results of this when you see the printed music in shots. Some stuff is easy to read, but other details are garbled by the 1080i and then further conversion. This does not take away from the concert or music - just an observation. Despite having the 4k version, I doubt there is enough market for a 4k disc release.

Generally, I found the editing decent. They save the wide shot for big moments, and mostly follow along the key instruments (where they had cameras) or on JW or ASM (when she is playing). Like most concert films, I actually find this annoying at times because visually, we will be right on the harp strings (this is the most egregious close up), but of course the harp is not blasting out - the mix remains a neutral seat location. So, you eyes and ears do not match. This is not specific to this recording; you experience it in other concert recordings and if the mix changed, the music would severely suffer. It's less jarring to see the violins or French horns up close when they play because they cut through so much of the mix anyway. When the image is on Williams, you can also get distracted by audience members who are themselves distracted. I wish the crew had kept the light levels on the audience a bit lower. (There is one girl who looks interested, then bored, then seems to have fallen asleep on her father's lap.)
 
Where I was very pleasantly surprised is how much I like the Atmos mix. There were some earlier posts in this thread speculating about that, but I have to say that it really is nice. Not being at the concert, I cannot try to compare the live sound. However, for my set up (which I think I have pretty dialed in), the surrounds and ceiling speakers felt right. Good amount of reverb and ambience behind me and nice wide sound field in the LCR speakers. The LFE is not overly aggressive. My wife thought it sounded better than what we heard in Tanglewood last July. (Of course, that is not really a fair comparison given the differences in the venues and orchestras.)
 
I was also happy to discover the CD tracks as Blu-Ray audio only. I did not expect or process those were on the release. They show as the same resolution that the downloadable HD Audio is (96/24). I do think the performances are the same as the video, with the audience noise edited out. (I actually wish they had left the final applause in the CD release as you sometimes hear on other live recordings.) Sound settings seemed to allow me to select 2.0, 5.1 or Atmos mixes for both the video and audio-only tracks. I believe this is the second JW conducted 5.1 or higher mix ever released, right? There is a SACD of Close Encounters, but I think that is a remix not a return to the original tapes. Same with Schindler's List. There is the Dallas Winds JW album on SACD, but JW did not conduct that. Earthquake was released in a 4-channel format on LP, but again, I am guessing that was created from pieces. The only one i can think of is Yo-Yo Ma and JW which Sony released in a SACD-only version (2.0 and 5.0 audio) separate from the CD.  In any case, I really like the JW in Vienna multichannel mix, and I would love a SACD release too.
 
So, from a technical perspective, I like the deluxe edition quite a lot, particularly in the audio region. I'm glad to have the record of the concert on video as well.
 
I have the MQA CD on order too and will see how that sounds. (That will be 2.0 though.)

As for the album/performance itself, which clearly has sparked some very polarizing views, I enjoy it a lot. I have done a number of runs to the music, and it works great in that setting (obviously, not the best acoustic experience that way). I've listened on my 2.1 set up at my computer, and that has been great. The Star Wars main title issue bothers me because it is pretty obvious. I heard the ET issue, but that feels wrong based on memory vs. on what is being played. I like Rebellion is Reborn in this format for the reasons of hearing the instrumentation. Raiders is enjoyable mostly because ASM is enjoying it (but I think David Newman was much faster in tempo with her in Munich last September on the same piece). I would rank this higher than the Dudamel, but perhaps not as high as the Spielberg/Williams 3. I think its on par with the Lockhart but that is so hard to compare because Lockhart focused on lesser played tracks. I'm so glad he did, because it's great to have those recorded.
 
 
Addendum: It still gives me a thrill to see John Williams on the gold label. And he did genuinely look pleased to be able to play with the Vienna Philharmonic.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I am so disappointed that Williams has a slightly loose jacket. It bothers me. And that the girl on the right in the eighth row has such a sad face throughout the concert. The whole experience is ruined for me now.

30 or 40 percent wrong? How wrong? What do you mean? The only thing you can stick to in the flub/misatke category is the several seconds of the Main Title from Star Wars, which doesn't sound so terrible to tell you the truth - the rest, such as the slightly slower pace of Out to the Sea and Shark Cage Fugue and The Raider's March are the question of Williams' subjective choice.
 
Both Viennese concerts are legendary, despite the fact that they took place only six months ago, and the blu-ray is only a confirmation of this.  I've been to both concerts and now I've seen it at home three times, I've also listened to the CD a couple of times. And I couldn't be happier.