jwfan06

!!

Make up your mind!

I FUCKING LOVE LATE PERIOD JOHN WILLIAMS!!!!!!!
I FUCKING LOVE HOW HIS MELODIES HAVE GOTTEN GENTLER AND MORE COMPLEX!!!!!!!!!!!!
IT BLOWS MY MIND A WHEELCHAIR-BOUND 94-YEAR-OLD CAN STILL WRITE MUSIC THAT SPURS MY EMOTIONS AND IMAGINATION!!!!!!!!!
I DONT’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT “MUH MEMORABLE THEMES” OR HOW IT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE “THE OLD STUFF”, CRITIQUES THAT REVEAL MORE ABOUT THE ATTENTION SPAN OF THE LISTENER THAN THE QUALITY OF THE MUSIC!!!!!!!
THIS SHIT FUCKING RIPS!!!!!!!
I FUCKING LOVE MUSIC THAT REQUIRES MORE THAN A SINGLE LISTEN FOR ME TO GRASP THE EMOTIONAL DEPTH AND LEVEL OF DETAIL!!!!!!!!!!!
ON THAT, LATE PERIOD JOHN WILLIAMS ALWAYS DELIVERS!!!!!!!!
MAY JOHN WILLIAMS NEVER DIE!!! JOHN WILLIAMS FOREVER!!! A HUNDRED MORE YEARS OF JOHN WILLIAMS!!!!!!! A THOUSAND MORE YEARS OF JOHN WILLIAMS!!!!!!!! JOHN WILLIAMS, WE CARRY THE FLAME!!!!!!!!
JOHN MOTHERFUCKING WILLIAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!
LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 

Rise of Skywalker is at the top of my wish list for complete releases (too bad it's probably the one with the faintest chance of happening). Turning all the unreleased cues et alternates into a satisfying listening experience would be a nightmare I guess, but I'd love to hear it. 

I edited the missing middle section back into the film. It still basically fits, though if you watch the Mark Graham video closely, the cut back to Exegol should happen right on the final chord of 7M21 Parents, so it appears the middle bit with Finn and Rose was slightly extended. I guess that could explain why this section was cut.
 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pfmTee01J0kZ8McUhlIKn0XbnMDiyuEN/view?usp=drivesdk

Oct 25: JW World Premiere (in Vienna!)
Oct 26: JW World Premiere
Oct 27: Announcement of a new JW Score (possibly recording within the week) 
 
Not sure that there has been a more eventful stretch of 3 days in the history of JW fandom.  

The event in question: https://www.juilliard.edu/event/182056/john-williams-composers-life-night-stories-and-music
 
Currently streaming here: https://www.juilliard.edu/live
 
Discuss that event (outside of this news) here.
 
Full quote:
 

Tonight I am co-presenting a (frankly incredible) event at Juilliard alongside composer Nicholas Britell. We'll both be chatting about John and his history with Juilliard, among various other topics, but there will also be some unique arrangements and live performances by star students—as well as the star of John's piano concerto, Emanuel Ax, who is playing excerpts from its first two movements as well as the theme from "Sabrina"! (Ax told me how much he liked that theme, so I made this request.)
 
And good news: it's being livestreamed here: https://www.juilliard.edu/live
 
6pm EST. More info here: https://www.juilliard.edu/event/182056/john-williams-composers-life-night-stories-and-music

Sounds great! Did anyone manage to record it? 

I hope that someone who is there can “capture” this moment for us? 

It isn't. The first page of the full score is also shown in the video, as well as some of the other pages of the solo violin part.
 
And it was wonderful to read in Williams' notes on the piece stating that he had so much fun writing the piece, especially considering he was working on this just a few weeks ago. Gives me hope he's up for the new Spielberg movie! 
 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DQKoaszjGZi/?img_index=7
 

Those, like me, who played the Lego Star Wars games as kids will understand that this is blasphemy. 

whatttt? thats crazy

https://www.wienersymphoniker.at/index.php/konzert/hommage-johann-strauss-25-10-2025

A bit of tongue-in-cheekness mixed in with some seriousness...

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNxV0rI2C58

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNxV0rI2C58

I'm sure we all have memories of being stuck at home during the pandemic and how great it felt when those restrictions were lifted. I presume JW has had to spend a lot of time at home recovering, so I'm sure being back on stage with new music, especially at Tanglewood, was very rewarding and satisfying for him.

Found this video from Carlos Simon (carlos_simon_music on Instagram) via his story. Williams looks very energetic and happy. Between this, and his still eloquent program notes, he still seems rather healthy, but just more limited in terms of mobility and naturally looking older.
 
Can anyone confirm if he spoke at all? There’s a mic right at his level. If he is going to narrate Film Night, I imagine that would be the setup.
 
StorySaver.net-carlos_simon_music-Video-1753622039369.mp4
 
 
 

Here you go. 
 
 

He was dead, not bitter.
 
Rott was Mahler's friend and fellow student (and at one point flatmate iirc). A favourite student of Bruckner's and heavily antagonised by Brahms, which (along with other factors surely) drove him mad soon after finishing his only symphony in 1880 at the age of about 22. He was committed to a mental hospital a year later and died there aged 25. His symphony wasn't premiered until 1989. It's a bona fide masterpiece (if clearly still an early work by an inexperienced yet visionary composer), heavily steeped in the world of Bruckner and Wagner while at the same time clearly the origin of the symphony as envisioned by Mahler. I don't think there's any doubt that Rott would have become one of the titans of late German Romanticism (and who knows where else his further development would have led), had he only been more mentally stable. Even so, his symphony is one of my top favourites. Fortunately, it's slowly becoming more popular, with multiple recordings (at least two of them very good), and I finally had a chance to hear it live last year.
 
When I heard the Rott for the very first time, I thought: Nice, but he clearly stole heavily from Mahler - until I looked at the chronology. Mahler apparently had the score to the symphony in his drawer and considered performing it himself, yet never did. His own first symphony, written some 10 years later, has moments taken pretty much straight from Rott, as does his 2nd, and some moments in his later works, too.
 
 

https://www.berkshiremag.com/post/manny-john
 
While early reports and rumors suggested the piece was inspired by the musicality of three iconic American jazz pianists—Art Tatum, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson—Ax is quick to clarify. "It doesn't sound exactly like them," he says. "The second movement has a lot of Bill Evans in it—that dreamy thing he was so great at. The first is quite hard, and the third movement is very fast, like Oscar Peterson, lots of notes to practice." 
  Despite Williams' playful remark in a 2024 interview that composing the piece for Ax took "chutzpah" on his part, Ax turns the compliment back toward the composer himself. "He's a very great man and a great composer," he says. "I'm so glad I wrote to him. It's a privilege." The concerto itself is a far cry from Williams' best-known film scores. "It's quite thorny, harmonically," said Ax. "It's not like the music for the movies. It's very strong, very compelling concert music."