Pawel P.

Come on... Why do I have the impression that after the concerts everyone was delighted? This is a live recording - minor flaws are acceptable, and fortunately I hardly hear them. I don't mind the slower pace here and there, and even if the orchestra is a bit off the pace at the start of the Star Wars Main Title, it's not something that would bother me. The performances are fantastic, the sound is perfect, but knowing that these concerts gave Williams and people gathered at Musikverein great joy is priceless. Blu-ray gave me a lot of emotions that reminded me of what I felt during those two wonderful days in January. And I know that I will come back to this concert very often and always with great pleasure. Thank You John Williams, Thank you Wiener Philharmoniker. 

Well said. 100% agree. Everyone who wasn't there can't argue about that.

Come on... Why do I have the impression that after the concerts everyone was delighted? This is a live recording - minor flaws are acceptable, and fortunately I hardly hear them. I don't mind the slower pace here and there, and even if the orchestra is a bit off the pace at the start of the Star Wars Main Title, it's not something that would bother me. The performances are fantastic, the sound is perfect, but knowing that these concerts gave Williams and people gathered at Musikverein great joy is priceless. Blu-ray gave me a lot of emotions that reminded me of what I felt during those two wonderful days in January. And I know that I will come back to this concert very often and always with great pleasure. Thank You John Williams, Thank you Wiener Philharmoniker. 

Come on... Why do I have the impression that after the concerts everyone was delighted? This is a live recording - minor flaws are acceptable, and fortunately I hardly hear them. I don't mind the slower pace here and there, and even if the orchestra is a bit off the pace at the start of the Star Wars Main Title, it's not something that would bother me. The performances are fantastic, the sound is perfect, but knowing that these concerts gave Williams and people gathered at Musikverein great joy is priceless. Blu-ray gave me a lot of emotions that reminded me of what I felt during those two wonderful days in January. And I know that I will come back to this concert very often and always with great pleasure. Thank You John Williams, Thank you Wiener Philharmoniker. 

The new album "Juno to Jupiter" will be released on September 25 in a steraming version. The physical version is expected later this year. Unfortunately, the album has leaked. Vangelis' team made a special statement:
http://elsew.com/data/latest.htm
 
First impressions are very enthusiastic.
https://notesfromanebula.blogspot.com/2020/08/from-juno-to-jupiter-vast-musical.html
 
Track list:
1: Atlas’ Push 3:41
2: Inside our Perspectives 3:32
3: Out in Space 4:14
4: Juno’s Quiet Determination 5:18
5: Jupiter’s Intuition 3:58
6: Juno’s Power 4:09
7: Space’s Mystery Road 4:18
8: In the Magic of Cosmos 2:07
9: Juno’s Tender Call 3:42
10: Juno’s Echoes 3:39
11: Juno’s Ethereal Breeze 1:31
12: Jupiter’s Veil of Clouds 5:18
13: Hera / Juno Queen of the Gods 4:21
14: Zeus Almighty 11:01
15: Jupiter Rex 1:36
16: Juno’s Accomplishments 4:23
17: Apo 22 1:54
18: In Serenitatem 4:15
 

Just got an email from JPCn my order is on its way (Blu-ray) 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/interview-john-williams-at-89-the-man-behind-the-best-and-most-hummable-film-scores-6z32zqz3h
 
Interview: John Williams at 89, the man behind the best (and most hummable) film scores
The composer tells Richard Morrison about his decades-long career — including the time he helped out a struggling LSO with ‘some sci‑fi film’
 
He left it late, but in January this year John Williams added another achievement to a body of work that includes more than 100 film scores, dozens of symphonic works and 52 Academy award nominations. Just a few weeks shy of his 88th birthday he made his conducting debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in the ornately gilded Golden Hall of the Musikverein.
 
The concert, filmed and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and released next week, was remarkable for several reasons. According to Williams, this venerable orchestra had never played a note of his music before. It certainly made up for lost time, delivering extracts from more than a dozen of Williams’s greatest scores, including Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Harry Potter films, Jurassic Park, ET, Jaws and Schindler’s List.
 
And the Viennese musicians weren’t the only ones venturing into unfamiliar territory. “Although I’ve done a lot of concert work in America, I had never conducted publicly in Europe before,” Williams admits, speaking down the phone from his Los Angeles home. “And I never really intended to. It always seemed a long way from California. When this invitation came, however, I thought, ‘Well, if I’m ever to conduct a concert in Europe in this lifetime, I’d better get on with it.’ And there’s no greater honour than being invited to conduct in the Musikverein.”
 
Was Williams aware of the history of the hall as he walked out on to that famous platform? After all, in his remarks from the conductor’s podium he referred to his soundtracks for the Star Wars films — all nine of them — as “a nice round number”, a remark clearly picked up by the Viennese audience as an allusion to the number of symphonies written by Beethoven, Schubert, Mahler and Bruckner.
 
“Absolutely,” he replies. “For any composer, to visit Vienna is a spiritual journey. It’s as much of a Mecca as we musicians have. Especially if, like me, you revere Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler. Just the chance to breathe the same air as Haydn — one of the purest, most instinctive talents in the history of music — was more than I could resist.”
 
Which of those composers would Williams most liked to have met? “Oh, Beethoven of course,” Williams says. “I still read through his scores for the pleasure of what I hear in my head, and for the beauty I find in their craftsmanship. And I think he might have been interested in film if he’d lived 200 years later, though he probably would have been horrified by having his music drowned out by the noise of spaceships flying past.”
 
And how did the Vienna Philharmonic take to Williams’s epic film scores? “They rose to the challenge brilliantly,” the composer says. “To be honest, I was a bit concerned before I got there. I know they have this fabulous romantic sound, and they can seem to turn on 19th-century style more genuinely than any other orchestra — but I had worries about the rotary valve trumpets [a more old-fashioned form of trumpet, still favoured in German and Austrian orchestras]. I was concerned about so much upper-register work being played by trumpets without the sort of pistons we use in Britain and America. I need not have worried, though: the trumpets were fabulous. Their pitching and power blew me away.”
 
Hearing music from so many films and decades collected together on one recording makes one appreciate the protean nature of Williams’s genius. There is no single “Williams style”. Yes, the swaggering imperial marches of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark might be regarded as a hallmark, but so might the spooky, bitonal shifts of the Harry Potter score, or the relentless Prokofiev-like ostinatos of Jaws, or the uneasy Vaughan Williams-like pastoralism of War Horse, or the Yiddish melancholy of Schindler’s List. Does Williams recognise this aspect of his craft, the ability to use the past 200 years of orchestral composition in the way that a painter might use a palette, selecting the colours and textures appropriate to the mood of each movie?
 
“Yes, that’s the essence of being a film composer,” he says. “We are asked to conjure all sorts of moods. I remember in my early days being asked to write burlesque and vaudeville-type music for comedies simultaneously with supplying big romantic scores for dramas. If you are going to write music for cinema, or at least for more than one or two films, you have to accept all varieties of challenge. It goes with the territory.”
 
And although few people think of Williams as an avant-garde composer, there are many moments in his films when he displays a remarkable grasp of what were, at the time, very avant-garde techniques. The nebulous string clusters that open Close Encounters, for instance, could have come straight out of a score by Ligeti or Penderecki. “Yes, it’s true,” Williams acknowledges. “In film there’s often the need for a composer to change gear even in the space of a few minutes. So in Close Encounters, yes, you get those Penderecki-like clusters, but they are then combined with a romantic tune, all in the course of a six-minute sequence.”
 
Does his inspiration ever dry up? Down the phone there is a sardonic chuckle. “There can be no such thing as writer’s block in film composition,” he says. “You are closer to being a journalist than a novelist. You have a certain number of days to write a certain number of minutes of music, and you have to get on with it. It’s a job of carpentry, of manufacturing musical things.”
 
So he never hits a blank? “Oh sometimes, but if there’s a section of a scene I can’t think how to treat I will just move on to another bit, then come back to it. It usually solves itself.”
 
How much do film directors help or hinder the process? Another knowing chuckle down the line. “Directors will always talk about what they think they want musically,” Williams replies. “And I always listen to them. But usually when I get to the piano and start to work, those ideas are pretty much gone. It’s always better for me to respond to the visual material — the film that’s actually being shot — than to verbal instructions.
 
“And of course there’s huge variety in that species of humanity called film directors. Some are very musical. Others are suspicious of using music at all.”
 
Where does Steven Spielberg, the director with whom Williams has collaborated for 46 years, sit in that spectrum? “Oh, with Steven there can’t be enough music,” Williams exclaims. “He always wants more and more. It’s rather touching in its way. He will come to a recording session that ends at a certain hour, the musicians will be packing up, and Steven will say, ‘Where are they going? Why are you stopping? Haven’t you got anything else you can play?’ He just loves the process so much.”
 
Williams admits to being a “child of Hollywood” — his father, a jazz drummer, moved the family there in 1948, and Williams began his career playing piano in Hollywood orchestras throughout the 1950s. Yet some of his most famous scores for Spielberg were recorded not in Hollywood, but in Britain, with the London Symphony Orchestra at Denham or Shepperton studios.
 
“I was introduced to the LSO by my dear friend André Previn, when he was the orchestra’s principal conductor, and of course the LSO players were whizz kids at sight-reading, so we made many recordings together,” Williams recalls.
 
In fact, the story is more dramatic than that. In 1976 the LSO — in desperate financial difficulties — asked Previn if he could write another film score so the orchestra could make some money by recording it. Previn said he was too busy, but offered to phone a friend who was writing a score for “some sci-fi film”.
 
The friend was Williams, who said he would hire the LSO as long as the orchestra could squeeze in 18 sessions in the next month. The orchestra agreed, as long as some sessions could begin at 11pm, after its regular concerts were over. And thus was the soundtrack to Star Wars recorded.
 
Even more extraordinary, the LSO had just recruited a new principal trumpet — the soon-to-be-legendary Maurice Murphy. So on his first day in his new job Murphy’s first task was to blast the opening notes of one of the 20th century’s greatest movie melodies.
 
“Yes, Maurice came out to Denham and we started with the fanfare from Star Wars,” Williams recalls. “And of course he shocked the world by hitting that top C with that extrovert, heroic, raw timbre he had — the perfect sound for the kind of action film that Star Wars was. I loved him from that moment! We always said that we would have a round of golf together, but of course we never found the time, and then he died way too soon.”
 
With most work in Hollywood suspended during the pandemic, Williams might be forgiven for taking a well-earned break from composition. Not a bit of it. He’s spending his time finishing a violin concerto for Anne-Sophie Mutter, who also features in the Vienna concert playing virtuoso arrangements of his soundtracks (“Harry Potter meets Paganini,” Williams quips). Astonishingly, it will be the 19th concerto or quasi-concerto he has written for the concert hall.
 
“I think of my work outside film as being part of my own musical self-education,” he says. “And believe me, the road to being harp-savvy enough to write a harp concerto is a long one. But it’s also nice to write something that doesn’t require the approval of a studio boss. And, you know, even if I wasn’t being paid I would always want to write music. The greatest thrill of my life has been hearing my music played, almost immediately, by wonderful orchestras. It’s something I wish every composer could experience.”
 
He’s not so far away from his tenth decade. Does he ever contemplate hanging up his quill? “Never,” he says. “I will press on. Music isn’t a profession. It’s my oxygen. Take that away and I’d really be in trouble.”

Personally, I think these were probably the most important concerts in the history of film music. I really mean it. Why the most important? Because John Williams was conducting the Vienna Philharmonic playing his music in Musikverein. And it was filmed.

Looks nice. 

Looks nice. 

Looks nice. 

Looks nice. 

Looks nice. 

Looks nice. 

Looks nice. 

Looks nice. 

What's the best film score of the past 12 months? Cast your vote now for the World Soundtrack Public Choice Award.   You have until 31 July 2020 to vote for your favourite score.   To vote, go to: https://www.wsavoting.com/en/publicchoice (Don't forget to confirm your vote via the e-mail you will receive.)   The shortlist has been curated by the IFMCA. The nominees will be announced mid-September, and the winner at the World Soundtrack Awards on 24 October 2020 via livestream.  

Yes, it was mentioned here quite recently. The date change is only at US Amazon. In European stores it'll be available from August 14. (of course, they can still change the date - hopefully not)
 
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B087SCCYF1/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B087SCCYF1/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1
https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/p51-i0028948390458/john-williams-wiener-philharmoniker-anne-sophie-mutter/john-williams-live-in-vienna-ltd-deluxe-edition-cd-bluray-/index.html
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/john-williams-anne-sophie-mutter-john-williams-in-vienna/hnum/9843487

OK so here are some more of my thoughts on this broadcast.
 
The opening credits sequence is hilarious.  It begins with an extreme closeup of John Williams conducting directly into the camera over an animated ocean sunset, and a medley of Jaws, CE3K, the dawning of the age of Aquarius song, and some other stuff plays.  This is just gold!
 

 
 
There's an announcer who introduces each piece throughout (not anything said at the actual concert, an announcer just for the broadcast I mean), and he introduces the first piece while we see John Williams take the stage, and we're right into the first piece!
 
But first, I must describe the outfits and look of everyone playing the music.  Don't think "80s", this is late 70s aesthetic here, which makes since since we're only 4 months into the decade.  Everyone is wearing these blue suits (I think every concert I've been to myself people have only worn white or black), there are afros and sideburns and perms quaffed hair galore.  The occasional shots of the audience are full of different outfits too, all very different than any concert I've attended!
 


 
Another funny part was everytime they cut to a closeup of the tuba player, they never got his face!  We kept laughing at that - why wouldn't they have just chosen a different shot to air?
 

 
John Williams is wearing blue as well, and he looks great;  I've only been seeing him in concert since the mid 2000s when he was in his mid 70s, so to see him a spry 48 year old is quite radically different, he's just so much more expressive and full of motion than I've ever seen him.  He bops along to the beat and really reaches out for what he wants someone to do.  As much as I enjoyed seeing all the closeups of the musicians (since you can never see this much detail in person), just seeing him for an hour would have been pretty great too.
 
Anyways, onto the music
 

 
The Cowboys - Overture
 
This isn't the short film overture of course, but the lengthy (9 1/2 minutes in this performance) suite like you can hear on "By Request".  This is a great way to start any concert, and is super fun here.
 
The Reivers - An Old Man Reminisces
 


This is a wonderful 20 minute long series of various selections from the score (and additional music JW wrote later I believe, constantly playing under and/or in between pieces of narration by Burgess Meredith.  I don't normally like dialogue or narration over my music, but this whole piece really works.  Fun stuff!
 
A Little Night Music - Selections (Night Waltz / Send in the Clowns)
 
Not my typical cup of tea, music wise, but at a total of about 9 minutes this didn't really outstay his welcome.
 
The Empire Strikes Back - Yoda's Theme
 
This was fascinating.  This concert took place weeks before the film had opened.  I don't know exactly when the LP came out, but I assume there's a good chance most people in the audience had never heard this before.  I stopped and thought to myself what it must have been like to have see Star Wars in theaters and loved it, been thrilled when you heard a sequel was coming, then gone out to see a pops concert and heard this.  You wouldn't even know who Yoda was, your mind would race at the possibilites of what the jolly music in the middle section is all about, or what the warm main part represents.  
 
The Empire Strikes Back - The Imperial March
 
This was even cooler!  This has got to be the piece of music I've heard live the most times in my life, it's seemingly performed at almost every film music concert I go to.  As such, it often isn't play that spectacularly, as by the time I was going to see the pops in the 2000s, everyone playing it had probably already been playing it regularly for years themselves, and JW can easily conduct it now in his sleep.  But to watch him conduct this premiere performance, for an audience that had never heard it, was fascinating.  I don't think I've heard a performance quite like this one, unpolished, unsure of itself, a bit hesitant... it was great!  After hearing countless flawless performances, this was really cool to hear so many little differences.
 
After this, JW left the stage... and C3P0 came out.  What was cool is that we actually get to see JW behind the stage a bit, since that's where C3P0 is before he comes out.  I have no idea who was in the suit, someone who knows how to conduct, I imagine, or who provided the voice, but it was a very close approximation of Anthony Daniels'.  I just realized, this is actually the only speaking in between pieces in the whole broadcast - you never get to hear JW talk at all!
 
Anyways, C3P0 thanks the audience and apologizes because R2D2 was supposed to be there but had dissappeared, so he will carry on without him ("and it will probably be much better that way")... but then R2 rolls in from the side stage, to another round of applause.  They have a little back and forth exchange, the C3PO goes right into conducting the main theme
 
Star Wars - Main Theme
 


This was great, because it was actually a different arrangement of the main theme I'd never heard before!!  OK, that is partly because 3 times during the main title, the orchestra stopped playing and R2 provided solo beeping and booping to cover the part they would normally play, which was honestly pretty cute and not annoying (though I can't say I wouldn't have been annoyed if I had never heard Star Wars music live before).  But then at the end, instead of going into the end of the crawl music and seguing to the end credits, JW actually wrote a brief little new ending that ends the piece right after the main segment of Luke's theme ends.  Pretty cool!
 
C3P0 and R2 then leave the stage and JW comes back out
 
Star And Stripes Forever

This is a huge crowd favorite every time it's done in Boston, and this was no exception.  Like the Imperial March, it's something all these performers can do in their sleep and is probably pretty easy to conduct - in fact JW honestly looked over it when they showed him a few times, which kind of made me wonder why they'd elect to use those shots at all!  This is always nice to see with the various orchestral sections getting their mini solos, and the American flag and balloons coming down towards the end.
 

 
What a fun hour of television!  I wish PBS would just air pops concerts every Friday night all year long!
 
 
Oh, and I have many more great animated GIFs of JW conducting to post tomorrow....

Here.
 
It's tiny bit different from the regular tired anecdotes. It's a pretty good article.
 
 
 
Karol

Yes, they're but my point is that in the case of John (and Jerry), their (orchestrators) influence on music is sometimes overestimated.

Very interesting. She talks also about working with JW (around 36:00) and what an orchestrator does for him. From around 45:00 to 47:00 she talks about arranging source cues for Home Alone and Schindler's List.

Well, there is no delay in Europe. The release date is still August 14.

^ if you’ve ever heard live orchestra performances, they are not supposed to sound like even tempo’d perfectly timed Mathematical equations Like the record labels insist on during an official OST. Live performances allow room for tempo changes, and allow Williams to feel out the room and each change of tempo is based on what he thinks fits best in the program. If ur going from listening on Spotify to watching a live performance and expecting “perfection” in that way, you’re not at all understanding symphonic music

Well, for me, it's about the collector's value (plus a dose of nostalgia). If  you own the first edition of your favourite book (let's say Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or whatever), would you throw it away because a newer version came out with better, more legible print, with a new introduction and afterword, new illustrations, updated cover art etc.? 
 
Well, for me, that's a big no. The first edition will always hold a very special place in my heart. But that's just me. You're welcome to have your own take on things.