zoltan_902
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Posts posted by zoltan_902
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'Sixty Years Is A Good Start'
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First 20 seconds of "The Faviers" are not only the most remarkable thing I can remember from watching the movie the first time, but the only really interesting thing in the entirely OST album for me. Rose's theme is tender and warm, but far too similar to 'Anakin's Theme', and only reminded me of that whenever it appeared in the film.
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I'm still holding out for another JW score that's as rich and sweeping and thematic as the first Harry Potter. I discovered JW through that film, and it will always be his strongest work to me.
Bridge of Spies had relatively little music in it to accommodate Spielberg's original intention of Disney releasing JW from TFA only for a couple of weeks to write the score. Then alas, a pace-maker operation came in the way.
You'd think if Williams had to forfeit (for scheduling reasons) one Spielberg film over another, in this case RPO, he'd pick the one that offer the most fulfilling challenge to him? Unless he's really slowing down and only picking the projects that are easier (but that wouldn't explain committing to a whole Star Wars sequel trilogy).... -
Two cues, and they both happen to be from the Indy movies.
First is the moment Indy is about to step on the camouflaged bridge; we hear a beautiful, ethereal choir, with a string melody on top. Two bars is all we ever hear of it, and I thought it desperately deserved further development.Second is a cue from KOTCS; I was deeply disappointed with the film. It was silly and juvenile, and sadly JW's didn't do too much to save it. Of all fragments of the soundtrack that I did remember positively though, there was this (almost) bluesy theme from the woodwinds, that I wish could have been Mutt's main theme, rather than that grossly misinterpreted 'swashbuckler' nonsense we were given. Thankfully, Youtube has the track, as it isn't featured on the soundtrack album;
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I too would have liked the LA to be 2024, but I would also concede that Paris is due.
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Perhaps you'll cross paths mid-air.
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I just watched a YouTube upload (from a user who has miraculously saved me from the pits of geoblocking).
It was a nice concert overall. I'm wondering if Lockhart's own interpretations of JW music is becoming distinctive enough for me to specifically recognise him as the conductor...
A few things I didn't like:
As (for some infuriating reason) seems to be the case with virtually all "Best of John Williams" concerts, we have to suffer a puerile MC. I hate how their presence trying to introduce each piece somehow trivialises the music.
The kids choir in 'Afrika' sounded not only tone deaf, but their elocution was shockingly bad.
I LOVED the arrangement of of Canina Band. I've heard a few concert versions of this piece - they didn't say whose version this one was, but it made really good use of the orchestra and was well executed. It's certainly not the Hal Leonard Signature Edition version.
I also really appreciated that Lockhart referred to the first Harry Potter film by it proper, original title, "The Philosopher's Stone".
- crumbs and bollemanneke
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12 minutes ago, Score said:
Unfortunately, no, not at all. Although the layout is visually stunning, there are usually tons of unbelievable errors (wrong notes, wrong accidentals, and if I remember correctly I even saw a few bars in the trumpet part of Duel of Fates that were transposed wrongly). Which is completely unjustified, given the exorbitant cost.
... But of course, we all buy them anyway
Interesting. I suppose ironic to what I claimed above, I would never have picked up on those errors - only if I'm feeding the notes into Sibelius (which is something I've done for a few of the scores in their entirety!)
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5 hours ago, bollemanneke said:
A few months ago, I asked this question to Hal Leonard, but never got a reply. I would be very interested in people's thoughts here, though.
Regardless of the legal wrangling and nonsense that would undoubtedly be unleashed if 'the powers that be' ever discussed the possibility, do you think it's possible/feasible for all these signature editions to be released in a digital format such as MIDI? I don't know anything about sheet music on paper vs mock-ups at all, but would just like to know if such a thing could be done without too much work. I'm not talking about achieving a perfect mix in those files, only about having all the notes (prefarably with staccato included) without any mistakes in them so that one could listen to and study individual parts. I'd personally be extremely interested in this because I can't read sheet music and let's just say that 80% of fanmade MIDI mock-ups leave a lot to be desired.
An interesting question indeed.
If I may make a blunt observation; I'm astounded by the number of members on this forum who admit (despite evidently harbouring such an appreciate for fine music) that they cannot read sheet music. Is this just a lack of education, or opportunity? Where I'm from, this is a basic skill taught throughout 12 years of schooling.
I own a fairly sizeable collection of the Hal Leonard Signature Edition Deluxe scores. They are quite expensive as they are, even before factoring in exchange rates and international shipping. But once they land in my hands there are zero regrets about cost. They are flawlessly engraved and published, and the ability to grab one off the shelf for instant reference is a huge pleasure.
The lack of a digital version of these might very well be due primarily to legal and commercial reasons, but ultimately my guess is as good as anyone's. Making them available commercially would indeed democratise the product, and theoretically serve Hal Leonard's commercial interests. But if I were to choose digital vs paper, I'd still go paper, if for no other reason that the engraving, and the orchestrations are often so dense, that viewing them would be impractical on all but the highest resolution monitors.
Maybe hire a computer wiz to hack into Hal Leonard's servers
, or, if you're bold enough to go there, even try hacking into JoAnna Kane Music Service's computers .
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16 hours ago, Thor said:
Yes, I also snooped around on that site after I saw the JW interview. Thanks for looking further into this, Zoltan!
How fantastic wouldn't it be to have all the (filmed) Boston Pops concerts wtih JW available! But as far as a crowdfunding campaign goes, I'm not sure how that would work out, as people have different preferences in terms of what taped concerts they would like to see. For example, I would much rather have the one featuring the "Seven for Luck" song cycle (if that was the BP; I keep forgetting) or something featuring more rare material. So how would one go about selecting which ones?
Thanks for your reply Thor!
Sadie Roosa, the WGBH rep, claims in the email that if they are able to determine to a certainty that their organisation still has full rights clearance to the footage, that it would be digitised and made available for free anyway. In fact, if I really wanted to take my chances, I'd put up my own $60 if indeed it lead to the episode being made openly accessible. (And I might very do that in the near future).
I'm keen to look through a whole heap of episodes; next on my list would be where Joshua Bell performs the Alexander Courage Porgy and Bess Violin fantasy.
I totally understand that other people will want to see other episode; and you are right that this will indeed frustrate fundraising efforts if we cannot agree how to best expend out our money to get this done. It would be much easier of course if we knew our money went towards a definitive product/service, but as the email states, we would for the present only be spending money to see if something is at all possible.
Sadie also states that if they determine that there is no rights clearance, that the episodes can be made available on their premises for private ('research') viewing for a much more substantive fee; But seeing as I live in Sydney, that's a prohibitive option for me physically as well a financially.
Maybe we can invite forum members to suggest episodes, then based on that we can put up an opinion poll to make a short list, and then we can establish a crowdfunding page to raise the funds at least for a 'Rights Assessment' for those particular episodes. Hopefully we can spread the fixed cost across as many members as possible, and make it cheaper for everyone interested. Just my thoughts...
Cheers!
- Cerebral Cortex and Saxbabe
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I was inspired by Thor's recent post about the discovery of an archived JW interview at WGBH's Open Vault website.
I explored the website further, an was *very* intrigued to find that pretty much the entire "Evening at Pops" series is listed on the website, albeit, not yet transferred for digital preservation.
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog?f[access][]=All+Records&f[series_title][]=Evening+at+Pops
As we know, many BPO concerts throughout John Williams' tenure as conductor were video taped by WGBH and broadcast on PBS. There are a few episodes of the series that despite my enduring longing for, haven't surfaced from old VHS transfers on YouTube or any other video sharing website.
There is an option on each episode's individual page to request a digitisation, and so having selected an episode I'm particularly interested in, http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_A34026CAA5AD4A419C44812A0583BDA5 (this is where the orchestra and the TFC perform 'Duel of the Fates'), I wrote a polite email as to how to get the process started, and perhaps with some luck, even realised.
I got the following response:
I know the response is a bit vague; but I think the bottom line is that there will be costs involved in any case.
My question to all the good people on this forum is whether it might be worth (if indeed some or all of you are willing) to start a crowd funding campaign to raise the funds to have some of these episodes digitized? The respondent claims the obstacle isn't so much funding, but the rights clearance, so first they have to determine (with the $60 fee) if they have the rights to make it available.
How many of you would be interested in putting forward some cash to see what's possible?
Cheers!
- Ricard and Cerebral Cortex
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1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:
Considering that anecdote is about 12 years in the future from this interview, it would have been quite a feat of prognostication!
Seems like retrospect is the only thing that can spare us.
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Seems to me like he thinks the interviewer is asking dumb questions, or questions he doesn't have any meaningful answer to yet. I think much of his mood and body language is a manifestation of frustration from this.
Two things we can be grateful for for not hearing:
1. "So what's it like working with with Steven Spielberg?"
2. "And he said 'I know but they're all dead'..."
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My 'collection'.
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I would assume so, but I don't own the score, so I can't say for sure.
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I just finished listening to the whole album;
My favourite track (despite it having had earlier release) is quite easily Dry Your Tears, Afrika.
I'm disappointed by Hymn to the Fallen - its truncated form here doesn't do it any favours, and I still think the performance and sound mix from the Saving Private Ryan original album is unbeatable.
I almost laughed listening to Viktor's Tale. It's the modified Signature Edition version, with some extra percussion added and the accordion removed. The clarinet performance thankfully avoids any 'squeaks' that various amateur performance I've heard seem to be plagued by. Emily Bernstein (who performed it on the original album, and who I hear sadly has passed away since then) performed the definitive version of this.
I'm glad that Marion's concert version theme now exists, it's nice and sweet;
Pleasing to hear also is the new recording of Escapades, as it almost equals my favourite recording of this (which incidentally was by a non-America, non JW conducted orchestra).
The other tracks - Mutt, BFG, Lincoln, Minority Report, Munich, and War Horse are all (of course) flawlessly performed and recorded, but I'm at a loss as to why such relatively recent works needed re-recording. I could write a list of pieces that I think would have been more deserving of a new album treatment like this, but in the end, I'm grateful that Spielberg and JW wentto the trouble of this one.
So, I just wish to express my deepest thanks to them for bringing this to us!
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Just now, crumbs said:
AWESOME! I hadn't thought to check!
I get Apple Music totally free on my phone plan, so that's my driving music sorted for tomorrow!
It's curious; when I saw the album available, it was about 23:30, 16/03/2017, which in theory is 30 minutes early, if indeed streaming availability is supposed to coincide with purchasing.
Looks like you're in Oz as well. Happy listening.
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1 minute ago, Will said:
I did know it uses the Summon the Heroes melody. I have just thought ever since I heard it that it was in a much more accessible language than Williams usually writes in. Maybe others will disagree.
I've never heard it before, but I like it, though I find it a bit absurd that it's supposed to be music for basketball - it sound way too noble for a game as rough and dynamic as that.
What's your dream title of a book on JW?
in JOHN WILLIAMS
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John Williams : The man behind the guitar.
....Oh wait.