karelm

@Drew, This is a copyright issue. Nothing to do with JW. Musicnotes sells arrangements. Making any arrangement is a duplication, and permission must be obtained from the copyright owner. I've made arrangements of dead composers' music and it is public domain in some countries and under copyright in other countries (Puccini, Rachmaninoff, etc). When it is not in public domain (like all of JW's music), the copyright owner can grant or prevent the right to copy the music. If Musicnotes did not profit from this music, they would likely not have a copyright claim. For example, student orchestras frequently play arrangements where the concerts are free/nonprofit or educational. If they charge a fee, they must abide by the copyright owner's rules. That is exactly what the youtuber email you posted is describing. This is every artist's right - to have a right as to who uses their music unless permission is granted. When the music is purchased, it includes a right for use. In Musicnotes case, they didn't purchase it and used it without permission - the copyright owner said stop. Additionally, the odds are good that this is not JW but Disney. Disney owns the music and recording (it was owned by Lucasarts before the sell to Disney). Disney says a school can't use the image of Mickey Mouse because they own the concept (Intellectual Property) of the character that is Mickey Mouse. Think of it this way, the Beatles music is very prized property because it is incredibly recognizable. Should that music be used in pornography? The Beatles who created that musical idea have ownership of who uses the music and how it gets used. That is what is happening here. Kevin Kiner can adapt the Star Wars music for his purposes because he was hired by the copyright owner, Disney, to score their projects. JW might hate what he did and doesn't have any legal ground to object. He might be given some opportunity to weigh in but this isn't legal, but respectful. If someone uses the music for non-profit uses such as educational or satirical, they have very little grounds of preventing this due to 1st amendment rights. The "John Williams declares war on sheet music" title of this thread is completely misleading and uninformed. The response from the copyright owner makes complete sense.

What does Imperial mean? As in, the Queen wore the Imperial Crown?

It might be. The Academy loves love letters to itself, and this film appears to be that.

This is an excerpt from a concert overture of mine from 2017. Here performed by the Prague Symphony. 713716233_ER-Editend.wav

She's not wrong! I literally told a friend yesterday that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone expanded (box) release is so gorgeous and of such quality minute by minute that it could stand up right next to any Tchaikovsky ballet. My favorite and reference ballet is Swan Lake. Your 8 yo daughter is a genius.

Wow fascinating! And based on Michael Grigorowitsch's post with Andris Nelsons, it's crazy just how radically different an interpretation is by the same conductor not that far apart. Just compare his Boston version with CBSO with Gewandhausorchester by the same conductor within a few year period. Very different interpretations! Additionally, there are concert performances that might have glitches but are superior interpretations.

Interestingly, they sloppily slur the 16th note ta-daaaaa's after the CGC "nature" motif. Isn't it surprisingly sloppy or am I just too picky? To me, those should be clearly articulated as well. Ta-daaaa not taadadaddaaaa! This performance can be better. I'm starting to think the music is better than any performance of it. One thing I get confused about, HvK made two DG recordings of this work, right? So this is the earlier one and he made a second later one? Or is this the later one because I thought one was 1980's digital. So, was 1974 his earliest or is there an earlier one? A fantastic opera but not a great fit IMO. 2001's primary story was about the transition of man to super-man by way of the monolith. That's a perfect parallel of Also Sprach Zarathustra's story...it just so happens the music fits even more so!

That section is the man is getting seduced seductively by two opposing ways of thinking - one through nature (the C major rising motif) and the other, through faith (B minor descending) which are always conflicting, never more so than the fugue at the end of part 1 which pits nature and faith against each other till the cosmos collapses with the grand nature motif indicating neither approach of itself is a path to enlightenment, but must be shed to achieve our true nature (part 2). During this clip, the saint explains he's found refuge from sufferings and imperfections of the mortal world by following god using a seductive version of the faith theme because, as Nietzsche argues it, the comfort of religious faith is seductive. But Zarathustra argues with the Saint that god is dead and humanity uses religion in its various incarnations to try to explain the mysteries of the cosmos, though never satisfactorily. The music you pointed out is the seductiveness of faith. That Andris is better than his CBSO that I linked in my post. I bit too safe, though, no? It feels like they've played this work a hundred times which the Gewandhausorchester has. Here is a funny story told to me from principal trumpet of a major orchestra, there is an exposed trumpet octave leap in the second part that is quite tricky. During rehearsals, the trumpet player would play the exposed leap always missing the landing note. So, one time he'd play a partial too low, next time a partial too high. The whole orchestra knew exactly how this was supposed to sound and kept on asking him "are you nervous about that solo" thinking he was truly struggling with it. In fact, he was having some fun at their expense making them all nervous that he'll miss it while in fact he's played that work hundreds of times and knew that solo inside out. Of course, he nails it in the concert, no doubt making some of his colleagues smile they've been had.

What would you say is the best recorded version of the opening from Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra? I've probably heard this work live a dozen times by some of the best orchestras and heard over 100 recordings over the years and each leaves me wanting more. There are three broad approaches: vintage (prior to 1960), intermediate (generally from the mid 1960's to 2000), and contemporary (generally younger conductors such as Dudamel, Nelsons, etc. Vintage tend to be brisker (Reiner, Bohm, etc.) and true to the score. Intermediate tend to be more dramatic. Contemporary is a mixed bag, sometimes seeming to want to shatter expectations. EARLY: Tend to be brisk and a bit controlled but precise (the timpani hits are played straight with no crescendo or ritardando as you tend to get in later interpretations). Those are not in the score, so these are more matter of fact and true to the score. Karl Böhm, The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Fritz Reiner, CSO was very, very influential for its intensity and rawness. The CSO was the "sound of brass" for a generation of brass players because the famous players were instrumental in music education writing highly circulated etudes and performance technique manuals and the subsequent generation of players (from the 1970's - 2010's) studied with them or those influenced by them. Here again, the interpretation is brisk and true to the score but edgier (on the verge of collapse). INTERMEDIATE: Tended towards hyper romantic and dramatic. Think von Karajan and Bernstein. This is where you get the molto-crescendo and molto-ritardando that is not in the score. You get more interpretive liberties, and the music slows down. Emphasis is on the drama and spectacle rather than accuracy. Timpani with molto ritardando and up close and present (sounds close mic'ed, infront of the brass). This is a very fine recording other than a few slips here and there. This Bernstein is from 1959 but I consider it more of an intermediate because his attitude was more flamboyant and romantic (dramatic) interpretation with liberties. Another fine performance but too early to capture the full range of the massive orchestra. Solti: This is the CSO again but a generation after Reiner. More romantic and bombastic and great, bright brass. This is a great combination of the precision of the vintage with intensity of the modern interpretations, plus beautifully paced. Johnny: Not the best. Competition is too stiff. I hate the low G on the timpani which doesn't have a tight tone but flabby and loses pitch. It's just not that strong. LATE/CONTEMPORARY Dudamel: better live than on record, here he tends towards the safe and ultimately the performance isn't a standout though competent. Andris Nelsons, CBSO - percussion way too loud. This is Also Sprach of the Apocalypse. I can go on and on but each one leaves me wanting more. Ideally, there would be a significant buildup of the three note trumpet "nature motif" of the sunrise. By the third statement, they are bold and intense. Similarly, the pacing shouldn't be rushed but I tend to prefer expansive though not lagging. I believe performance tradition is just as valuable as what the composer wrote in the score so it doesn't bother me if almost all modern versions include a crescendo and ritardando in the timpani because I'm sure Strauss would have suggested some sort of interpretive shape is implied. This is one of the greatest openings of all music and needs to have that scale of epicness in its interpretation - this is not just about a sunrise, this is about the end of an era (and the dawn of a new era)...the dawn of science and the demise of religion with mankind being the bridge between nature and the ultimate result of evolution, the Super-man. I believe the music should start controlled and end virtually on the verge of collapse - right on the edge of what the orchestra can play. If it sounds too easy for them, it's too safely interpreted. But all this without sacrificing the slow tempo that indicates this is on the cusp of something very magnificent. Not just about sunrise about the dawn of possibilities unimagined which is why it so perfectly fits the opening of Kubrick's film, "2001". By the way, here is Strauss's interpretation. It is a half tone too high but this is probably an artifact of early recording technology rather than out of tune. You can hear the crescendo in the timpani that isn't in the score but steady tempo. In short, he's adding some dynamic contours which no doubt served as a basis for some additional interpretive liberties in subsequent interpretations.

I think it would be part of the Juilliard collection. All his music, including sketches, will reside there after he's gone. The press release said: "The Juilliard School announced today that it has received a bequest from Academy Award-winning composer and conductor John Williams of his complete library of concert music and film music scores as well as his sketchbooks." A bequest is a gift made as part of a will, so this will happen after he died. This would probably include incomplete works and sketches, anything that survives. We'll likely find lots of abandoned works some nearly complete and some only tantalizing clues of what might have been.

George Lucas used LSO because it was a buyout orchestra requiring no further payment unlike the LA union orchestras. He clearly believed some actors were allowed to share in the profit (Alec Guinness) but at his discretion and not a prearranged agreement. This is a left-over concept of how he viewed the music as preexisting temp (thank you Kubrick). In contrast, Spielberg never had this vice and saw music with a more Hitchcock than Kubrick view (an essential aspect of the story telling rather than a background character helping with the setting). You are seeing the impact of Lucas as producer which I think over time he has been softened because he had a career with full creative control.

Something about that story reminds me of this skit.

Rostropovich is a professional cellist, not a conductor. His interpretations are generally not very highly regarded musically speaking. A major part of why he has a reputation with Shostakovich is because he parallels Shostakovich's life as a dissident in some ways even speaking out publicly against the Soviet government, which put him in the crosshair of the Soviet party. He was eventually exiled from USSR the year before Shostakovich died, therefore is sort of a parallel artist BUT as a cellist, not as a conductor. Of the many recordings I've heard of his, my favorite is his LSO recording of Shostakovich's No. 11, but the others he recorded weren't as successful. The problem with him is he's basically an amateur conductor working with world class orchestras in very good and complex music. Great orchestras can probably perform this music just fine without him but his personal ties to Shostakovich (both of Shostakovich's Cello Concertos were written for and premiered by Rostropovich) is the selling point. Keep in mind the list of conductors who take on Shostakovich include some of the very finest we have on record, and these are conductors who are obsessed with the details of conducting music, something an amateur just won't be able to pull off as successfully. Again, with a great orchestra, great music can and does still result but his contribution to the mix is less than significant. In a conducting masterclass, a point was made to have us not conduct the orchestra at all. The music sounded great, arguably better than when we conducted it. When we conducted it, there was a sense of confusion, hesitancy, and uncertainty that is completely gone when we stood aside. It really took a very good conductor to improve on what the top-level orchestra could already do without us. It's important a conductor does not get in the way of excellent musicians but in fact elevates them. That's what great conductors can do, and I don't think that's what Rostropovich did.

I'm an expert on this. As others have already stated for general approaches, Decca/Haitink and Barshai are both very excellent interpretations from start to end. Haitink is bit more polished and refined (more European) and Barshai is slightly rawer but not anywhere near as much as the Soviet era conductors. He's very much a European version of a Soviet conductor. Think Yevgeny Svetlanov who spent half his career conducting Western orchestras with that sensibility. Nothing wrong with that but some consider that like Benihana restaurant version of Japanese food - it's much more about show and what Westerners think Japanese food is about but nothing about authenticity. If authenticity is what you want, you'll want Kondrashin or Gennady Rozhdestvensky. These interpretations are on fire and truer to the original concept as Shostakovich premiered many of these works with them. The downside is they suffer from inferior recording and idiomatic performance technique (Soviet era playing style which is very ugly to modern ears). Harsh strings and trumpet vibrato was very popular in that style and not popular in Western music. To us, it immediately sounds Soviet. Also tempi is way faster. You get a sense as if the performers would be killed if they slowed down. But there is no doubt there is a sense of accuracy, but it isn't for everyone. These are the cycles if you like Hitchcock, Lawrence Olivier, Orsen Wells, Richard Burton, etc. To modern ears, these are over the top, melodramatic, theatrical. So, what you want is a balance of the fire the original interpreters had but the maturity and wisdom of contemporary interpretations. Shostakovich is still such a deep and rich composer that you need someone who is fully invested in his sound world. This group of conductors are Kurt Sanderling (he's German so halfway between Soviet and Western), Mariss Jansons (Latvian so Eastern Block but refined and fiery), Vasily Petrenko (British-Russian). These are all excellent cycles that are intense, well crafted, modern interpretations in the best sonics. These conductors are intelligent and knowledgeable about Shostakovich, his time and place. A separate note should be made that you won't go wrong with Bernstein, but you'll get a Germanic version. That's not entirely bad because Shostakovich was very influenced by Mahler, but Bernstein did not make a complete cycle, but his versions are standouts though heavily colored through western eyes which was the fashion at the time. Similarly, the composer's own son, Maxim, wasn't any more authoritative as he went through Soviet and Western phases and his conducting mirrors those phases. They are interesting and enjoyable because of the unique perspective, but not definitive. Like all great composers, any performance leaves you wanting more and that's absolutely the case here. With all this being said, you won't be wrong with any of the names mentioned - most especially the first Haitink and Barshai, I just think it's worth understanding what exactly you would be hearing with this fascinating and multilayered composer. After decades, I've come to learn, there is no perfect cycle but loads of great ones each with their own distinctive styles.

Please, please go in order. This is arguably the finest representation of JW's golden period and covers an incredible breadth and how it gets there is so important. You can't skip to the end!! You have to experience the journey. Don't read the last chapter of a mystery. Don't eat the dessert first. Experience the journey especially when it's very rarely as beautifully told. It's a recurring theme. Not just in this film but in many Spielberg movies. E.T. where only the children can see and understand him despite the adults trying even as mom reads Tinkerbelle stories to Gert about believing then you can see. If ever there was an eternal child, Robin Williams in Hook, was an adult who forgot he was Peter Pan because he was so overburdened by life so much that even Hook didn't recognize him. This is a very important point of many Spielberg movies one way or another. Of course, A.I. is overtly Pinocchio but expands on it. Sort of a modernized version of it. I'm not talking just about Pinocchio but the essence of Pinocchio - that with the innocence as a child, you see the magic that the adult fails to see. That's like in almost all his films. I bet cinephiles can argue it's even in his historical films too.

The overlapping speech adds some realism as does casting real people for example, in CEOTTK, those are real air track controllers not reading script. They shot in a real air traffic center of Palmdale, California (though the setting is Indiana) close to Edwards Air Force Base where the sound barrier was broken thirty years earlier. Here is the control center today: Similarly, Spielberg does this in E.T. when he uses real medical people adlibbing their lines when E.T. dies. These moments do certainly add a sense of reality to these fantasy films. Sort of like casting someone who really couldn't speak English well for François Truffaut. I think this was a great touch in retrospect because he's a bit awkward in the role but from stories told by Richard Dreyfuss was genuinely innocent and naïve which contributed further to the story. I've been rewatching the film today and I think I'm reconsidering my criticism of the film. I'm starting to get it more clearly now. Here is how I see it. Pinocchio, a marionette that wishes to become a boy, becomes a living marionette when his creator wishes upon a star. The Blue Fairy comes into the puppet shop at night and turns Pinocchio alive but not yet a boy. She assigns Jimini Cricket as his conscious that guides him on the path of good. Importantly, Jimini Cricket sings that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true. If Pinocchio remains brave and honorable, he will become a real boy. But Pinocchio has many fears including thunder and fire and other things that children would fear. Plus, he is prone to lie when he is afraid, extending his nose. He was deceptive to the Blue Fairy when tempted by folly. The lie extends his nose which the Blue Fairy fixes but warns him, she'll not intervene again. He is now on his own on his quest to conquer his fears which is quickly tested greatly as he hopes to become a real boy. So, one of my issues was this story has nothing to do with CEOTTK but at least was the basis of A.I. so there, it made sense. But in rewatching the film, I can better understand Roy seeks to be a boy...at least childlike qualities which is clear when he talks to his kids about goofy golf versus Pinocchio and they all want goofy golf instead. The aliens seem to reveal themselves as friendly to children, that's why Barry doesn't fear them, but adults do. So, the film is Roy's Pinocchio challenge, to overcome his fear which might be adulthood as the aliens don't reveal themselves to his wife who lives with worldly, mundane struggles. Roy doesn't fit in that mold, he is a dreamer - a foreigner in a foreign land and because of that, ends up losing his family like explorers or dreamers of legends past. His challenge (anyone who becomes a responsible adult) is the quest for remaining a sense of childlike wonder and not lose that, and that is what enables him to see the aliens. Therefore, the film is a retelling of Pinocchio with adult life as the marionette and his fears of government, death, family responsibility, etc., that he overcomes honorably, and the aliens are the blue fairy who take him way in to his real imaginary world. I think I might finally get the film. It's a bit of a hybrid between Pinocchio and Peter Pan. If you believe in the fairy, it might seem scary at first but eventually you can see it. What do you think? We can take it even further. The late 70's were the height of the cold war. 50,000 nuclear war heads which were way more than could destroy the entire planet. During this time, Carl Sagan penned Cosmos which was a scientist warning if a society on the cusp of interstellar awareness could survive its own technological adolescence. It is doubtful if a society can survive the adolescence where it can destroy itself. In a way, this totally plays into Pinocchio in that fear and death comes at the stake of knowledge and wisdom and it is not clear if the pursuit of maturity sacrifices survival. Can we survive our technological adolescence and become a member of the interstellar community? This would then make CEOTTK on par with another sci-fi masterpiece, The Day the Earth Stood Still where adults failed to hear the message of the visitor because of their fear but the children and enlightened heard the message clearly but were rejected by the masses controlled by their fears.

CEOTTK is such an oddity for me. It's probably my single favorite JW score in terms of depth, quality, and range. He's at his most extremes of fear, awe, child-like wonder, danger, unknown, etc. The film is incredibly effective and it's very hard not to get choked up and carried away by how effective the film is by its ending, but it also makes little sense! Or at least, I just don't fully comprehend the story and its Pinocchio allegory. It's a very confused story and it's a masterpiece of emotional manipulation. I vividly remember this in the theater after Star Wars and no one else was there. It was an empty theater other than my brother and I. I was expecting a Star Wars type film, but this had so much dialog and grown-up topics like family issues and such. But by the end, was completely taken in by the score and spell of this magical experience of seeing the amazing but flawed film. Having just seen Jaws after 10 years and loving that experience, maybe I should revisit CE but which version!?! I think Spielberg is confused by it as well.

Was Jaws the first film to have jump scares? If not, what preceded it? I wouldn't really consider the shower scene or "mother's reveal" from Psycho the same thing because Hitch specialized in suspense - you know the scare is coming. Which is different from jump scare where it came out of nowhere. Jaws was on TV yesterday which I started watching. It really is a great, great film so expertly crafted with memorable characters and excellent directing/editing/screenplay. And of course, a masterful score by John Williams that is just so spot on in every way. Though I've seen the film millions of times, I haven't seen it in maybe ten years so it was easy to get back in to the mindset of this is something I haven't seen before and how it must have felt to new audiences. I wonder if this was the first film with jump scares, but they are still incredibly effective like when Chief Brody sees Jaws eye to eye for the first time while chumming the water and delivers the "You're going to need a bigger boat" line.

I once asked Burlingame about why not write a book or documentary about JW. It was clear there was interest, but his sobering response was he doubted it would be done during JW's life. The impression I got was, it was just very low on Johnny's interest based on all the stuff he was working on and in his advanced age, that has become even more true - it would be hard to convince him to participate in something extensive where at 90 years old, his schedule is fully booked for years out. His reluctance is hard to explain but became pretty evident when you see him at work or in rehearsals in work mode. It's just all about the work and he's pretty unsentimental otherwise. This usually leads to a follow up question, is he aware of the impact he's had on his legions of fans and again the general response is he's aware, humbled but then unsentimentally gets back to focused work. Our hero is a bit of a bore. I think this attitude starts making sense especially in that generation. For example, Michael Collins, the Apollo 11 astronaut who was the pilot (he flew around the moon while Neil and Buzz landed but none of them would return to earth without a successful rendezvous and piloting of Collins). Collins died only recently but for decades would talk to engineering students and universities with one stipulation. No questions about the moon trip. That would make absolutely no sense to most people who are in awe of what those men did and how it was done. But in his core, Collins was (and most of the other astronauts with the possible exception of John Glenn) were poor spokesmen but exceptional pilots. For some strange reason, they felt everything about the moon had been said already and there was nothing new or interesting to say about it or it was up to philosophers and historians to explain its impact, not these men. The kind of question Collins would enjoy were engineering problems that engineers would find interesting, but most others would find mundane for someone who had accomplished something of such significance. I think JW is a bit like this. Talking about himself or the abstract questions like "where do your ideas come from" are quite uninteresting and he probably feels he's answered that thousands of times and really doesn't have a satisfying answer. He just works hard is a very unsatisfying response. Eventually the topic becomes uninteresting because he'd rather just get the work done and let someone else ponder the significance and cultural impact, how someone like him became the great composer of his time, etc.

He doesn't have a star on hollywood drive either. But these guys do:

I really enjoyed this program and the presentation! That must have been thrilling to be a part of.

His early stuff was Beethovenesque. Richard Strauss' early stuff was Brahms rip off. Elderly Brahms was interviewed in the book "Talks with Great Composers" around mid 1880's before Richard Strauss had written any of his famous works. His style at that time was very conservative and influenced by Brahms. When asked who the next great composers were, after some hesitation, he listed some names none of which have stood the test of time except for a then young Richard Strauss who was known for pastiche of Brahms and his entire reputation exists in a mature style he hadn't yet developed. Cameron is a very talented composer and very modest and nice guy. I love everything I've heard from him and his passion. As you can tell, he's a huge JW fan and others are taking notice as he's received impressive commissions and consistently delivered. Conrad Pope is also quite impressed with him, and I'll tell you, Cameron listens to feedback and constructive criticism. I have no doubt he'll go far if given the right opportunity with a similarly talented creative filmmaker. Like most composers, his early style might not sound much like his later style but he's consistently impressing his colleagues and just needs the right project. A funny story I've mentioned a few times, once in an anonymous composer submission forum where composers give feedback of each other's music to help improve our skills, there was this big band piece that we all looked at each other wondering, who did this? It was immediately clear who ever it was had significant talent. The tunes were catchy and orchestration professional. Without knowing who it was, we gave feedback about how well the composer understood the orchestra and how immediately engaging the music was. The feedback was consistently praising the composer and when asked if the composer wanted to identify themself, Don Williams raised his hand and said it was something from his brother Johnny back in the late 1950's that none of us had heard. Of course, we were all relieved no one was stupid enough to criticize it but it was obvious in hindsight that was the same composer who would go on to score such massive hits in decades to come though the style was quite unrecognizable to any of us. JW was as much captive to his early influences of Benny Goodman, and others he grew up with as we are with him. Those influences are slowly shed in time, but some elements remain and are part of the mature style of any composer though it can be hard to see the connection between the early composer and their mature incarnation.

As someone who worked on the Raimi Spiderman scores, you definitely should send this to Chris Young. He'd love it! You'd get extra points though if you demonstrated more of his scoring techniques. The boss fight is only a minute long and he's great at extended action sequences if you can demo that. Also, try to expand more on preexisting material rather than stating it. For example, do that thing they do but longer. Don't say what they say. I hope that makes sense but it's an important distinction. Great job though!

Such a kind and generous man. He had absolutely no ego and did whatever was needed to deliver an outstanding score and always with a big smile. RIP.

I liked it. It reminded me of something that could be in Dune.