Locrius

The only thing Vienna had that I REALLY wish Berlin had, is Hook. Other than that, I prefer Berlin's program. (Oh, and "The Rise of Skywalker" would have been nice, too.)

yes, until that horn came in too late in Hook. But in all seriousness, I do believe it must have been magical for some people. I've had magical experiences too until I started comparing them to better ones.

Does the video not work for anyone else? Man, it's frustrating; I keep seeing members posting .MOV video links, but none of them are working for me. 

For those who don't recall, Simone Pedroni is the guy who released a piano album of Williams transcriptions a few years back!
 
 

Does the video not work for anyone else? Man, it's frustrating; I keep seeing members posting .MOV video links, but none of them are working for me. 

Does the video not work for anyone else? Man, it's frustrating; I keep seeing members posting .MOV video links, but none of them are working for me. 

Does the video not work for anyone else? Man, it's frustrating; I keep seeing members posting .MOV video links, but none of them are working for me. 

Love how he pronounces it as "Hed-vig's" theme when introducing "Hedwig's Theme" -- proper German consonants!

JW knows not the sound of the best soloists from Berlin. If they had played, JW would never fly to Los Angeles. He would stay in Berlin for the rest of his life 

Some people have asked me how this concert was different from the Vienna one. Vienna was my first ever JW concert in person, so it blew me away and left me in such a shock that I couldn’t listen to a note of music for a whole week after. That being said:
 
Better in Vienna:
- venue
- smaller, tighter stage so the sound was more direct, which was an aspect of the sound I loved there
- magic of Vienna (it also started to snow a few hours before the concert) added to its already historical significance
- I preferred the program there
 
Better in Berlin:
- orchestra
- as much as I like Anne-Sophie, I preferred the original arrangements of the pieces
- orchestra again; really worth repeating as they played with less mistakes than VPO, and especially the string section was incredibly warm and pleasant sounding
 
Both incredible concerts, as a whole I preferred the Vienna one because of the whole experience, but playing-wise, this one was better.

I noticed that. That kind of bugged me. I thought they still sounded great, but for instance it would have been nice to see Stefan Dohr on 1st horn. Actually, some of the people I saw playing 1st, I don't even see them listed on the Berlin Phil website as members... Did they bring in freelancers to play principal? Strange.
 
 
Any reason why? Is it something to do with the Vienna album?

Everybody seems to have forgotten how awesome Vienna was, in terms of the musicians (instrument signing session, asking to play the Imperial March, all those happy strings players, the mighty horns..., Anne-Sophie Mutter joining for Raiders, commissioning of a new Ball processional...), the perfection of CE3K, Dartmoor, Devil's Dance, and the now legendary rendition of the Imperial March at the end. The audience was just about the same as in Berlin, standing up after every other piece, hollering, thumping and so on. It was the proper continental debut that generated nearly 4000 comments in its thread, and had an awesome feel of a second chance after the 2018 health fiasco. I am not saying one concert is better than the other, but looking at this poll, it seems strangely lopsided.
 
It will make more sense to compare albums released once we get the Berlin one.

Thanks so much for posting the MP3. But wow, these performances are even better than I remember earlier, watching the stream! Some of these may even beat all the competition.

Why are they still clapping...? Looks like JW and the orchestra are long gone...

That 14-minute standing ovation at the end. John Williams has left the building, the orchestra is gone, the lights are dimmed, but half of the remaining seats are clapping like crazy. I've never experienced anything like this in my life.

That final applause lasted 13:45 

Bet he’s already in the hotel alseep

Longest applause ever!

LOL, those low brass notes towards the end of Raiders March!  Not sure I've ever heard them that loud.

Hm, for some reason when I click your video links, I am brought to a page that says "Sorry! We could not locate the item you are trying to view." Is anyone else having this issue?

Good. Remember, people: no buy until fix!

Lot's of comments about the missing tracks

I'm still holding out hope that the digital release was a mistake and it will be quietly replaced after the 1st. I'll keep the flame lit a little longer. I've waited a long time for Hunchback. Considering how many times Menken has worked on this material, he has to care about it as well. I would like to think he cares about this release. I don't expect every tiny little thing to be perfect. Just add back in the finale and fix the stutters in Out There and The Cathedral and I can handle everything else.

I emailed Botnick again, this time about these other issues too. We'll see.