This might actual come from a live recording from November 2019, with Williams in attendance. If that's the case, the original concert line up included Barber's Adagio and Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony.
Of course, until more info is out, they might have the recorded the concerto during the rehearsals.
After a very long time I am very proud to introduce the fully redesigned FMDB - you can find it under https://www.fmdb.net
The vision of this non-profit project is to provide a comprehensive and detailed database of soundtrack releases and recordings. Each release contains at least one production (e.g. a film) with its own credits. This makes it possible to accurately list the various credits. General credits for the entire release are listed separately. Individual tracks are assigned to productions, so you can see which film, TV series or video game they come from. Want to see which episode the tracks from the many STAR TREK releases are from? No problem at all.
But all this only works with people who are as obsessed with detail as I am. And I'm looking for you. To make sure the quality is right, there should be a group of people who take care of it, like curators in a library.
The next feature will be the ability to create your own user account. You will then be able to report errors in records.
I'm happy to receive any kind of feedback to help make FMDB a viable tool for the soundtrack community.
To be fair, I think Beethoven's staffers run his account. He has a policy of never posting online himself. However, Brahms posts his own stuff and often copies what Beethoven wrote... cheeky.
25 years! Happy belated birthday to JWFAN and my warmest thanks to @Ricard for creating this place and all the great people here for making it this wonderful, vibrant community.
My copy arrived just today. I have never ordered anything on Amazon and wanted to avoid doing so. I managed to grab my copy on Allegro (which is the Polish equivalent of eBay) from a private seller. It would be a bummer to learn he had bought it on Amazon in the first place. Ignorance is bliss
I can't find any articles that mention it, but discussion of it starts here:
https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/28858-across-the-stars-williams-mutter-collaboration-album/&do=findComment&comment=1550380
Fal posted a video the same day on the next page, but now it's gone. Anyway that was my source for the info.
Mum? Uncle Frank? Where are you guys? Is this a joke? Did I just see Home Alone at the Royal Albert Hall? Was it approved by the American Dental Association? Yes, I did, and no, it probably wasn’t. But boy, was it worth it.
First things first, though. I love travelling on the Tube and listening to the announcements (“Change here for the Northern line. Please stand clear of the closing doors.”) Could do it all day. Sadly, they had switched them off on the way to the venue, but that didn’t matter in the slightest because I had the great pleasure of sitting beside a woman who had the most gorgeous Cockney accent I have ever heard. And d’yeh know wha’? She even offered me a seat.
We were still finding our seats by the time that the ‘the performance will start in five minutes’ announcement was ringing through the hall, but the smell of popcorn and the tuba rehearsing Kevin’s theme was all I needed to start relaxing. I felt like I was in for a great night at the cinema. No further announcements were made.
I forgot which orchestra was playing, but I do know Ben Palmer was conducting, which was an added bonus after his episode on Maurizio’s podcast turned out to be so compelling.
The sound came entirely from my left side, which was a huge advantage because that meant I could take off that wretched hearing aid. For those who don’t know, you can’t just wear it without hearing the damn thing all the time. Expecting it to react normally to sound is apparently impossible. Everything needs to be overly detailed and exhausting to listen to.
Strangely, the first notes of the score after the Fox fanfare were played on piano instead of celeste, so it was obviously a synthesizer doing the work, which is probably the case on the recording as well. The celeste did come in later, which was a huge relief because I was briefly afraid that we would have to listen to all that magical music on piano. It was also playing at the wrong octave again, which I really don’t understand. Why can’t these people just listen to the recordings and write down the percussion notes correctly? And the even stranger thing was that sometimes the problem was resolved in the middle of a cue and then came back in that very same cue. Really weird. Examples of the octave issue are the moment when Kevin realises his family has ‘disappeared’, or the beginning of Walking Home. Both were played too high.
The very first cue of the score also seemed to be missing… something. I can’t describe exactly what it was, but it was most likely percussion, probably sleigh bells and/or tambourines.
Having said that, the overall performance was mostly flawless and the balance between film sound and orchestra was really great. Most of the time you couldn’t have guessed that the orchestra was playing completely independently of the movie, except, of course, if you were blessed with finely tuned antennae and when they drowned out the film sound (love when that happens). The hall’s echo was only distracting for a little while at the very beginning of the movie and once you hear things like We Slept In, Sledding on the Stairs, Follow That Kid, Setting the Trap and any Somewhere in My Memory statements live, you just… It’s impossible to describe what that felt like. It always makes me wish that they played these things in regular concerts all the time without the distraction of the film. How wonderful for the writer’s bruised vanity that would be.
A few notes about the film itself, just because they really struck me this evening. Catherine O’Hara is such a wonderful presence, as is the polka king of the Midwest, but the woman at the drugstore really isn’t that great. And speaking of that scene, there wasn’t any glockenspiel during the Somewhere in My Memory variation as Kevin makes his escape, which was kind of disappointing. Or there might have been, but the notes were too high to hear.
Now, a word about the music written for the break. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to like it and even now I don’t really know how I feel about it. One part of me just really wanted to hear Listening to Carson as recorded, but another really appreciated the grand extension it received. Having said that, the opening of the second half really didn’t need to be there at all. It’s basically just a repetition of the main titles, with a few lovely notes added here and there, but it’s rather jarring because it segues right into I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas, a song performed in a completely unrelated key. One could also argue we didn’t need a break at all, but then, I always like to stretch my legs and take a breath on these occasions.
And the choir needs mentioning as well, of course. It wasn’t a children’s choir, thank God, but an adult one with males and females. Again, there are no words to describe the moment they came in during Walking Home, regardless of the fact that the film only has children singing. You just… You believe. Isn’t that a timely reference now? What really surprised me was that they also didn’t drown out old man Marley, which, depending on your tolerance for lip-smacking, is either a blessing or a nightmare. My goodness, that guy has issues, though it’s a really lovely and well-written scene. What also surprised me was that Star of Bethlehem had only one vocal part, so you just heard all the sopranos singing the same notes. But again, I just can’t be critical of such things because the sheer sound and the realisation that I was actually listening to that cue in concert was mind-blowing, even though the organ sound wasn’t the same. In a way, it was even more beautiful, really. Oh, and speaking of the organ, it played the album version’s accompaniment, so none of the beautiful bells and whistles that Mike unearthed for the film version. And Carol of the Bells contains a slight difference: they don’t sing the final high notes, so the moment the orchestra starts playing Setting the Trap, the choir stops, which I don’t really approve of as that mix is so special. And Setting the Trap came with yet another surprise: soft timpani over the violin’s D minor fugue and the final note was held as long as it is in the recording, which didn’t really work as it briefly made Pesci hard to hear. I also can’t recall whether they retained that magnificent church bell at the beginning of the cue. I want to say they didn’t, but don’t quote me on that.
And then, the final confrontation with the burglars was upon us. There was a slight clarinet flub during the first stages of the attack (might have been the only flub, come to think of it), but it was so wonderful to sit in the hall with all these people laughing as Harry cursed, shouted and howled. I feel more sorry for him with every viewing. And then, of course, Clothesline Trapeze filled the hall in its full glory. The fact that it was all coming from one side didn’t matter in the slightest. Christmas had arrived. Also, the orchestra didn’t play quietly during “that’s my gold tooth!”, which was kind of nice. And as the sequence ended, the sopranos joined in for Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas with some oohs and aahs! I think the orchestra even accompanied that song as well, which begs the question why they couldn’t also play the marvellous carols Kate gets to hear at the airport. Those would have been such a treat and presumably not hard to mix with the dialogue at all.
For the end credits, We Wish You a Merry Christmas was sung as well (and completely obliterated by applause, obviously). Then we went mostly quiet for the rest of the suite, though some rascals still had the nerve to start moving already.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! MERRY CHRISTMAS! Ah, how I love that gem. Such an uplifting carol. I do want to say again that I still don’t understand why JW had to change the opening. The alternate opening on the Deluxe Edition is so fantastic. Just leave it alone, nobody needs that brass fanfare when you can have violin and flute thrills. Anyway… The orchestral writing simply boggles the mind. I heard flutes and piccolos doing the most complex and crazy things, things that I never realised were there, or maybe that piccolo really isn’t there at all and was just a flute playing at the wrong octave, but never mind, what a piece! Someone really has to mock it up so I can study it. The strings were mostly inaudible because of the wonderful trombones, but oh my, did I have a blast.
There you go. If you have any questions, I’m taking a bath with the pocket translator. Now I’m gonna give you to the count of ten to get your ugly, yellow, no-good browser off my thread before I pump your guts full of lead, or I’m gonna call the c… FROM A TREE HOUSE?!
Thanks @Arnaud2 I've really enjoyed putting it together so far and there's always more updates coming. I also have a couple other projects on the go that I'm going to release when they hit a point that I've gone through and made sure they are not full of errors. One of them is a sheet tracking all of the orchestra performers across the Williams scores that we know of.
For the Chronology, my hope is to keep growing it and make it as comprehensive as possible. That said if anyone has any sources you think are great places to look I'm always on the lookout to keep things going.
A New update nicknamed "Do it Rockapella" this time adding the state or country playing a bit of Where in the World is Maestro John Williams. When possible I've added the State or Country in which the entry takes place. Also some formatting updates with more to come and of course new and updated entries.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Sgepya2i8LU2TPesQRGltWtQJ7yNXDCOubwqDKqwg4I/edit?usp=sharing
Lastly I've added stats panel that will give live updates on the number of entries of each type.
KittBash got a reaction from JTN in Mike Matessino Video Interview by Skywalking through Neverland [Late 2023]
KittBash got a reaction from Sylvan in Mike Matessino Video Interview by Skywalking through Neverland [Late 2023]
KittBash got a reaction from Bayesian in Mike Matessino Video Interview by Skywalking through Neverland [Late 2023]
KittBash reacted to Miguel Andrade in New recording of Williams' Violin Concerto No. 1
KittBash got a reaction from Ricard in John Williams Chronology
KittBash got a reaction from Arnaud2 in John Williams Chronology