Maglorfin

Over the last few days, I've been listening to the pieces I will be playing in 3 weeks with the World Youth Wind Orchestra. I'm especially looking forward to playing two pieces by a very talented American composer Steven Bryant.

Any ideas when the trailer for Black Ops II might come out? My expectations are not really that high, based on what I've read so far, and I really want to know if I'm going to be proved wrong.

Do you like his Lord of the Rings symphony? I never really got into it; maybe because I couldn't mentally connect it with Middle Earth... Of course, I love it! It's one of my all-time favorurite wind band compositions. I, on the other hand, have no problems whatsoever connecting it with Tolkien's world, on the contrary - I make these connections all to easily and immediately have many scenes from books and movies in front of my eyes!

Some of my all-time favourites: - Strauss, Eine Alpensinfonie - Beethoven, Symphony No. 7 - Schubert, Symphony No. 3 - Holst, The Planets - Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade - Mozart, Concerto for flute, harp and orchestra - Mozart, Missa longa - Lauridsen, Lux aeterna - Respighi, Pines of Rome - Vaughan Williams, Symphony No. 7 'Sinfonia antartica' - de Meij, Symphony No. 1 'The Lord of the Rings' - Picqueur, Symphony No. 0 'Phoenix ex cinere suo renascitur' - Maslanka, Symphony No. 5 and Give Us This Day - Bryant, Alchemy in Silent Spaces - Josia, The River of the Last Valley - Ellerby, Paris Sketches - McBeth, Of Sailors and Whales - Rutter, Mass of the Children - Holbech - Missa rotna - Sibelius, Finlandia and Spring Song - Jenkins, Adiemus I-IV - Daugherty, Metropolis Symphony and Raise the Roof (timpani concerto) That'll do for starters!

Received yesterday:

Thank you to everybody who posted pics, it's totally clear you guys (and gals ) had a great time, and I'm green with envy for not being able to join you! But I'm compelled to make it sooner or later, and then I'll be able to join you for the photo opportunity!

Although Randy Travis is a country (not pop or rock) musician, I can't resist mentioning him since he's one of the few artists I often listen to whenever I'm not listening to soundtracks, classical or jazz (which is rarely). Ever since I heard his song The Hole in Deep Impact and researched who is it that sings that great song, I've been a Randy Travis fan!

My opinion is exactly the same. As a kid, I actually saw Aliens before Alien, and I remember it scared the living daylights out of me, in addition of course to making a huge impact as such a great, relentless and powerful combination of action, sci-fi and horror elements in a single awesome movie, an impression which was only strengthened upon seeing the 17 minutes longer director's cut. I must of course not forget the score which to this day remains one of my Horner's favourite works.

Me too, just yesterday! But they're gonna keep us waiting now, it'll be 2-3 weeks before LLL gets it in stock again, and then further 2-3 weeks before it reaches me here in Europe ... If I receive it by mid-July I guess I'll be happy ...

Symphony No. 3 'Planet Earth' by Johan de Meij. Wonderful music!

I don't recall: Heard the Kempe recording yet? I like the Karajan (he's generally my first choice for Strauss), but in this case, Kempe wipes the floor with him. And the playing of Karajan's Berliners is rather sloppy in places. Yeah, I've heard the Kempe recording. Believe it or not, I actually bought it primarily because you always spoke so highly of it! Boy, was I disappointed! The orchestra is for my taste far inferior to Berliners, the playing is not even close to BP's energetic, inspired and powerful performance. And, since you mentioned sloppy playing - plenty of it here, beginning e.g. with the long snare drum roll immediately before and the a2 cymbals crash at the beggining of Sonnenaufgang are horribile auditu - probably played on shit instruments (cymbals sound like 100 EUR instrument) and seemingly also played by pretty uncapable musicians - hell, even I would have done better job with that snare drum roll, what a terrible technique! The timpanist - after the concertmaster the most important orchestra member - isn't much better. Also, the beginning of Sonnenaufgang is played (and recorded) like it's written for solo trumpet and orchestra - totally not cool. Performance of Gewitter und Sturm - Abstieg is forgettable, Auf dem Gipfel also boring. Plus, whoever mixed and engineered this also had a very peculiar taste - more often than not totally wrong instruments/sections are at the front of the sonic image. No hard feelings, Marian, I know you will disagreee on every point and I know Kempe's Strauss recordings are supposed to be all that, anthologic material and blah blah blah but this particular Eine Alpensinfonie recording is definitely the worst I've heard so far. I mean, golly, is it possible that a wrong performance was burned to the disc I bought?!

Pay It Forward, The Passion of the Christ, United 93, World Trade Center, Forrest Gump, The Green Mile and The Lion King (but only when I watched it for the first time as a 13-year old kid, and only when Mufasa died ).

Wow, NYC last October, Boston this month ... You do get around! Have a great time everybody, would totally like to join you but unfortunately not this time. Be sure to take a photo of all of you and post it here.

+1

I thought exactly the same thing while listening to it.

Does anybody know this piece? I've never heard it or about it until the Slovenian Philharmonic concert a few days ago and I was fascinated! Sounds totally like film music to me! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wPD48CcxVo

Yeah, almost - he doesn't die e.g. in Ronin!

Damn, saw this too late! What have I missed, lower price?!

Ordered! (+ Rosemary's Baby)

Friday the 13th. A perfect one to listen to late at night home alone in the dark.

Haha I feel you mate! So you guys say this one could be gone in 24 hrs?! Well no other choice then than to order it pronto in an hour or so ...

This is my recent arrangement of Carrie main theme for vibes and flute I've written in memory of my dear friend's Dad who passed away (cancer) a couple of years ago, and was a great musician and a very nice guy. However, his son (himself a soundtrack junkie) organises a wind band film music concert every year (for the last 5 years), and this arrangement was performed at the last concert, a month or so ago. Both girls did a great job but unfortunately they gave a wrong mike to the flute player so the sound is not too good (she plays much better than can be heard here). Well anyway I thought y'all should have an opportunity to hear this; hope you like it.

Irina's Theme from KotCS is also cool.

What a Tragedy! RIP.