Gurkensalat

Eine kleine Filmmusik

This has taken me a whole year to prepare and produce, decades if you count the research and accumulation of material. But I thought it was the appropriate time to create now, as a tribute to my favourite film composer in his 90th birthday year.
 
A complete walkthrough of all of his television music (with the available material and data that we currently have), presented as a podcast series over multiple parts. I hope you tune in and follow it. I will start working on Part 2 soon.
 
http://celluloidtunes.no/celluloid-tunes-73-the-complete-john-williams-television-music-walkthrough-part-1-24th-international-edition/
 
 

Watching and enjoying in silence!

Imagine two guys who never met before starting a conversation somewhere in the mid 80’s about music. Guy A says he’s really into rock and heavy metal to which guy B responds: ‘Yeah, I like rock too.’ Guy A brings up legendary bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Rush and Black Sabbath and guy B says he loves Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin. Guy A says he’s also into current bands like Iron Maiden, Slayer, Anthrax and Metallica to which guy B responds: ‘You know who’s also really good right now? Bon Jovi!’ 
 
When people bring up Hans Zimmer when I’m expressing my love for film music and composers like John Williams, Ennio Morricone and Jerry Goldsmith, I often feel like guy A.
 
It’s not that Bon Jovi is a bad band. They successfully bridged rock and pop and made rock music more mainstream than before. But an Iron Maiden fan wouldn’t necessarily be into Bon Jovi, just because both bands classify as ‘rock bands’.
 
My interest in film music started at a young age when I thought of film composers as ‘classical composers like Beethoven or Mozart, but then working today.’ With his many iconic themes to my favourite films growing up and his grand orchestral sound, John Williams became the best example of this notion.
 
I like that traditional methods of composing live on and that film has become a canvas on which composers can express themselves, just like composers in the past worked on ballets, operas and such.
 
It is part of my fascination for film music.
 
So when I talk about film music, I will always mention the work ethic involved and the artistry of writing for a symphony orchestra. John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry, James Horner, Howard Shore: these are the kind of film music composers that sparked my interest in the genre.
 
Hans Zimmer is not a bad composer by any means. He sort of re-invented film music by partly replacing the traditional symphony orchestra with electronics, rock guitars and such. His composing method is one of collaboration, much different than John Williams who sits alone behind his piano writing the notes down with a pencil on paper which will eventually lead to a complex and profound symphonic work.
 
The music of Hans Zimmer simply doesn’t harmonise with my personal interest in film music, which is more an interest in the continuation of symphonic composition than specifically the film music genre.
 
When I express my fondness for John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith and someone brings up Hans Zimmer as in: ‘He’s also good’, it doesn’t quite feel right.
 
Can anyone relate or is it just me?

With Star Wars, John Williams brought orchestral scoring back into the mainstream.  With The Fabelmans, he brings classical music itself back into the mainstream.  The man is a genius.  

I prefer the original theatrical cut, since I saw the movie in this form several times in the cinema. I also like, that it has a bit more humor in it, e.g. the "train wreck" scene in the introduction of the Nearys, and the scene where Neary throws plants and garden stuff through the window into the house. I thinks those are missing or shortened in later versions.

I prefer the original theatrical cut, since I saw the movie in this form several times in the cinema. I also like, that it has a bit more humor in it, e.g. the "train wreck" scene in the introduction of the Nearys, and the scene where Neary throws plants and garden stuff through the window into the house. I thinks those are missing or shortened in later versions.

Alternate Binary sunset from A New Hope. 
 
Alternate Follow Me from Always

Alternate Binary sunset from A New Hope. 
 
Alternate Follow Me from Always

late to the game :-)

late to the game :-)

I can really recommend eclassical.com for classical music. They charge very reasonable and per second, not per disc, and they offer a lot of high rez, even often in 5.1 Multichannel. Each day they have one recording on half price which allowed me to discover a lot of music I would never have considered buying full price.

I can really recommend eclassical.com for classical music. They charge very reasonable and per second, not per disc, and they offer a lot of high rez, even often in 5.1 Multichannel. Each day they have one recording on half price which allowed me to discover a lot of music I would never have considered buying full price.

It's my birthday so just wanted to share.
 
Enjoy xox
 
https://music.apple.com/us/album/earth-plunder-wound-renewal-hope/1626106061?i=1626106064

I actually hear a lot of similarity between this theme, Holdo, and Anthem of Evil, in that opening gesture on the horn. What I love about Williams is that he is able to take these relatively simple constructs and imbue them with such dramatic depth, and, while all three have a basic structural similarity to my ears, they are all completely different in emotional meaning. Williams’ work is always so much richer than any of us has ever deserved. I am so grateful for this man.

Strong Bruckner influence here, eh, @Falstaft? (A composer I hadn’t really thought of in connection with JW before, until Frank pointed out the influence on some other more recent Star Wars music.)

No argument here when it comes to Christie, Dern, Serkis... and yeah even Boyega and Isaac (though at least his role was bigger than in the first film). But I thought Ridley, Driver, and Hamill had a LOT to do in this film, and they all did it very well. I'm amazed to see even a TLJ-hater lump those three in with the rest.
 
Yavar

TLJ, for its flaws and the first 40 minutes of TFA are the only Star Wars content done by Disney I have enjoyed thus far, TV shows included. But it's preferable for Rian to focus on things he probably will enjoy more and let Star Wars just die on its own

Despite some faults (the Finn/Poe/Rose side quest) I thought The Last Jedi was easily the best of the sequel trilogy, and I think Rian Johnson doing all three sequel films would have turned out much better than, say, JJ Abrams doing all three sequel films. But really they clearly just needed to plan them all out and have a unified vision/plan from the beginning. (Say, how come Maz Kanata ended up with Luke's lightsaber again? That "story for another time"? LOL...)
 
That said, I'm not sad that Rian Johnson is moving on to focus on follow-ups to his amazing Knives Out, which was way better than, well (to be honest), ANY Star Wars film with the possible exception of The Empire Strikes Back. Oh, and though Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond (largely due to Casino Royale; none of his other films were nearly as good) I love his detective character in Knives Out far more. To be honest, I think Knives Out might be one of my favorite films, period.
 
Yavar

I love the "Lighting of the Beacons" from RotK. The orchestration is just phenomenal. Super interesting how the melody is traded between instruments. Howard Shore said this is one of the pieces he is most proud of.   I made a cover for pipe organ and performed it live to the film. There are quite a few people here who know the soundtrack very well - so I am curious to get feedback.  I have transcribed the entire first hour of RotK, might upload more pieces later.

You mean the store where Hans Zimmer finds inspiration?
 
 

I am so happy, that my favorite hardware store in Germany finally gets a theme by John Williams: https://www.obi.de
 
 

I am so happy, that my favorite hardware store in Germany finally gets a theme by John Williams: https://www.obi.de
 
 

I am so happy, that my favorite hardware store in Germany finally gets a theme by John Williams: https://www.obi.de