Remco

Nobody else listened so far? It’s been out on Spotify for already 12 hours guys! (Well in my country at least)

So far, Close Encounters, ET, War Horse and basically all of the slower pieces just take my breath away. Also I urge everybody to check out Rebellion is Reborn on this one. ......but still there are also some glaring performance issues. Shark Cage Fugue sounds like a good right-read session at moments. SW main titles is also problematic (although amazing in sound).

@publicist is right though. Everyone is free to like R1 as much as they want, but Gia sounds like an amateur if you’re accustomed to classical music and by extension JW’s idiom. And I don’t think that’s elitist to say – since Gia deliberately mimics an existing idiom, there are some objective ways to look at the quality of it. Again, whether you like the music or not, that’s something else.

It was weird when Darth Vader started speaking in that performance.

It’s incredible. For me, TFA somehow started my intense JW-fandom. It was like a wake-up call, realizing he was still very much alive and kicking and I’d better follow everything he did while I still could. It’s funny how I was anxiously waiting for news about TLJ, whether he could do it or not – let alone finish the trilogy. And here we are in 2020, feeling like he could potentially do another trilogy of films still. What a gift this man is.

The Williams Wheel just keeps on going.

Well, the OST of Rise of Skywalker already features a great deal of music that is not in the film. Since it wasn’t an issue there, I hope it won’t be in the future. I also think it depends on how they look at an expanded release: hopefully as something of great cultural value written by a legendary composer, instead as just merchandise.

The piece is absolutely brilliant. And I get mad when I read on YouTube that people find it just ‘boring’ music until the choral outburst. Also, got to love how we got to hear Zimmer’s Batman theme at 0:30!

I’m sorry

Any news of a TROS signature edition? I’d be surprised if it wouldn’t be released after TFA and TLJ got their concert suites published.

Exactly @TownerFan. But still, not everyone is well informed and you’ll still hear somebody say every now and then, ‘Williams relies on orchestrators’, or even ‘Williams doesn’t write his own music’. I guess it happens when you’re as good as he is. It’s also interesting to note that the assignment of woodwinds in tuttis is the single thing that orchestrators usually mention as being up to their discretion.

So true. For instance, I remember a thread discussing everybody’s favorite orchestrator for JW which was just so wrong on many levels.

Wow, this thread makes me realize how much Williams scores outside of the Spielberg/Lucas world I don’t even know...

No of course not, I said when they’re not on a clicktrack. I.e. Scherzo for X-Wings concert version. Also I find there’s usually no problem either with slow pieces, or pieces that need a healthy dose of rubato in the first place such as Leia’s theme, where there’s always a sort of speeding up or slowing down towards a new section. It’s mostly in fast-paced pieces that need to have a stable energy throughout. The best way to describe it I think, maybe, is that when he conducts this music the changes in musical tension go along with changes in tempo.

This is silly. The LSO is/was fine, but the orchestra itself became much better with sightreading around the time of the prequels and also the Hollywood performances are much more polished than the OT ever was.

Thanks @Jay. It’s really annoying that, even while I loved the concerts and recordings, I can’t express one issue I have with Williams’ recent conducting on this forum. You all act like I’m crazy, but the fact is that his stability and sense of tempo stability has become somewhat disturbed. This has nothing to do with how symphonic music should or shouldn’t sound in a live setting, it’s simply a weakness and one that at times comes across as slightly unprofessional. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s the VPO, the HSS when they’re not on clicktrack, or any other American orchestra. You can hear the same problem everywhere. Now whether you’re bothered by it is a totally different issue and I’m happy most people don’t seem to mind. But I am not an idiot for noticing it.

This is very true and as I’ve said before this has something to do with Williams’ detoriating conducting skills. The main attraction these performances have is a phenomenal sound, but it’s again a bit painful to hear how Williams can’t seem to keep the tempo stable at the end of ‘Neverland’.

I’ve watched the entire thing and regretted it. This video shouldn’t exist in the first place, but the way it’s singling out TROS as the one true *disastrous* score in the series just goes too far in every way.

Wait, what? Asking JW to score your film does not necessarily mean wall to wall scoring. RJ’s favorite Williams score is The Long Goodbye! I’m sure both men know enough of cinema and its history to make another exciting collaborarion together. I hope it happens.

Yes, the LA orchestra kicks ass. I don’t know why they selected that particular bad take – but let’s not pretend the LSO gave a world-class performance on the OT. It’s full of tiny errors everywhere.

It’s funny how the HP series is one of the LSO’s flagship series when it comes to their involvement in film music, yet John Williams conducted the orchestra 0 times for it!

HPSS and POA may have many of the same players, but it’s certainly not the LSO. I guess just like the LA studio orchestra has players from the LA Phil in them. As for the London Sinfonietta – It’s important to note that these are the baroque players that were contracted for that portion of the score, this is not the symphony orchestra that was used.

Fabulous! And apparently the performance of the second day (the promo had footage of the first day and started with a slight error).

RIP Maestro Morricone. And @Lewya, I must say I find it repulsive to take this opportunity to downplay John Williams on a forum dedicated to his work. Edit: I see you edited your post already, fine.