Falstaft

That Williams delivers a product he is pleased with, both on its own legs and the way its treated in the film.

Perhaps this?: Video just uploaded today by Brett Mitchell. Great channel.

Bostonians rejoice: Williams conducting his new violin concerto w/ ASM will be opening night for the BSO this season! https://www.bso.org/brands/bso/features/2021-22-bso-season-overview.aspx Amazing, that approaching his 90th year, Williams is not only not slowing down in terms of conducting, but seemingly increasing his activity! Hope he doesn't wear himself out!

Sad to see no love for this (long unreleased) miniature masterpiece! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxWgmhYWi1A&ab_channel=JohnWilliams-TopicJohnWilliams-Topic (I ended up voting for X-Mark The Spot, but this would be 2nd)

Not the first time JWfan has speculated about this particular cue! To complicate matters further, I wonder if Gordy Haab had Horner's "The Ride" and/or "The Train" from Zorro 1/2 in his ear when writing "Han's Kessel Run" -- which I further suspect Williams had in his ear when writing "The Adventures of Han."

Beautifully put, @Schilkeman. In a way, it's a shame most listeners' exposure to the score is through the concert arrangement, since, while perfectly nice, it leaves out some of the most extraordinary instrumental writing in the score proper. Just take this passage from "Dream Country," from the celesta theme at 6:30 to its transformation in the strings at 7:30. It alone is more breathtaking in terms of its orchestrational skill & imagination than basically anything by any other major living film composer in the past 40 years.

In introducing the first clip, Lockhart says "We had the chance to talk to John a couple of years ago, in the comfortable setting of Spielberg's private screening room at Dreamworks Studios..." So new to all of us, but not super recent. I think JW refers at one point to the 9 Star Wars scores, so I guess after 2019 at least..

It's up, folks, and well worth spending the nominal fee to watch: https://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/113477 Program includes: Superman March Heidi Jaws Sayuri's Theme Olympic Fanfare & Theme Victor's Tale Stargazers Imperial March Adventures of Han Yoda's Theme Rey's Theme Raiders March Cantina Band (non-Williams arr.) Highlights are the opening montage of clips and photos, many of which I've never seen before, and of course the generous sprinkling of interview clips with JW himself. And the expected incred

It absolutely does!

It's that kind of repeated note pattern followed by a sweep up and back to the beginning that starts showing up all over JW's action scores. In TLW, I think it's in three distinct tracks: Monster on the Loose, Visitor in San Diego, and Ludlow's Demise. (Not sure what the break down is in terms of cues though.) In its first iterations it's wedded to that stomping B-D-F#-D ostinato which I suppose is also very lightly motivic. A few examples: Wow, didn't know that! Stuff like this --

@Jay's encyclopedic knowledge never fails to impress! I think there may be a few other minor bits and pieces that are loosely thematic across JP1 and 2. There's the Hatching Baby Raptor material which is recalled in Life Finds A Way pretty directly. And the Ludlow material and its derivatives in JP2 that pops up in a couple cues. Also a little brass outburst in Rescuing Sarah that recurs in Rialto Ripples, but this is really stretching the definition of "theme" Then again, who could forget the assortment of monstrous growls and grunts like this that are so important to

It is curious that Williams didn't call TreeSong a concerto, since it really is one in all but name. I wonder if Williams was aiming to emphasize the violin's coloristic, evocative nature in this piece. TreeSong, while by no means easy, has less in the way of pure technical fireworks just for the sake of virtuosity than his other concerti. In this way, TreeSong shares yet another thing in common with Dutilleux's L'arbe des Songs, which also was not meant to demand showy technical complexity in the way concerti usually do. (The other connections, which I'm sure have been observed h

Ooh, don't mind seeing this bumped -- especially since, in a few months time it'll have to be updated with another violin concerto! At the time I voted the Viola Concerto for favorite overall and the final movement of the Horn Concerto for movement, and I'm fairly certain I stick with that choice now. Williams better get cracking on that Concerto for Trombone, Concerto for English Horn, Concerto for Double Bass, and Concerto for Percussion to round out the rest of the traditional Romantic Orchestra! He's so close!

Hi Conor! I'm sure you know her work already, but in case not, check out Grace Edgar's dissertation on music & gender in action film scores. I agree that Williams approached Irina as a femme fatale, whether or not that suited her actual character or not. (It's not the first time Williams wrote a theme for female character in a slightly incongruent way.) Looking at the way he uses her theme in concert performances might be instructive. I know that for the past decade or so, he's played his (2008) arrangement of Marion's Theme to a montage of Hollywood heroines, in

Temped, I think it's fair to assume, with this from Once Upon A Time in the West -- There's also "Susan Speaks" from The Patriot, which seems to me to highly derivative (yet somehow also superior to) Deborah's Theme from Once Upon A Time in America. At the end of the day, it's all drawing from Mahler 5/IV!