QuartalHarmony

I've just driven home from work with the third CD playing, and just been amazed all over again at what a great score, performance and OST album this was (is). Williams is at (or certainly very near) his absolute peak, he's worked with the LSO the year before and you can tell he's pushing them harder and they're enjoying keeping up. The brass section are absolutely on fire and the strings are great too, though possibly a little too much vibrato on the violins at times. The OST album is brilliantly sequenced - I like albums that generally follow the film order - with the concert suites being pla

A question that’s bugged me for years: what theories are there for why Yoda’s Theme is used in the chase through Bespin? Almost any other theme would make more narrative sense - it’s not like the chase is Yoda-related in any meaningful way - and many other themes would have worked well musically at that point. Maybe JW just felt the other new themes were getting a good airing and he wanted Yoda’s to get more air time? Seems odd reasoning to me though. Thoughts? Mark

My 'suppose so' was referring to the box set, which I know has caused grumblings - I don't usually bother with re-recordings, so the Prague set could be brilliant or dreadful and I wouldn't know! To be honest, the things that are missing from the Indy box set don't bother me much, although the sound quality is a little overcooked/compressed for my taste. The end credits from Doom is great though - the way the tempo change from Willy's theme to the children's crusade is handled is just marvellous. Mark

Nice, @thor. Need to have a good browse through those.

Yeah, I suppose so, but I’ve kept my DCC Raiders CD so that keeps me happy on the sound quality front and I’m not fussed about the few minutes missing from it. As for Doom and Crusade, sure, it’d be nice to have everything with great sound, but the box set isn’t that bad. It’ll do. Mark

I can't bring myself to pay funny money for CDs I saw in shops 25 years ago for a reasonable price, so there's no way I'm going after OOP Varese ones like Eiger. In the meantime, I'm happy to wait patiently until St Michael of Matessino works his magic on: Eiger Sanction Hook (especially rejigging the Prologue so it's in B minor like wot it should be) Star Wars IV, V and VI (obviously!) Once those three are done, I will declare my collection completed to my satisfaction. Mark

Has anyone ever done a set of screengrabs of Williams's name in the titles of films he's done? It might be nice to see a direct comparison of how it looks in each one. I do often wonder whether composers are tempted to massage their credits music so that their name coincides with a particular flourish or sting. I know I would be, though I'm sure Williams is far too consummate (not to say modest) a musician. Mark

Having only had the Varese recording on an illicit cassette copy from a friend years ago, I jumped at the chance of the expanded version. Sure, it was a lot of money (and even worse when you factor in the ludicrous amount of postage to the UK), but I've not regretted it at all. I'm not quite as much a completist as many people - I love Far and Away's score, for example, but have no desire to splash out on the recent definitive version when the original CD is so good - so if one of the new releases is good enough for me to buy, that puts it in a minority. Mark