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Falstaft

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Falstaft last won the day on July 8 2023

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  1. The smirk and glint in his eye when he says this...
  2. Alright, who's going to "ENHANCE!" this so we can speculate wildly on his current project:
  3. A little past his birthday, but you all may enjoy this little segment with KCRW where we celebrated Williams's lesser-known scores. (Well, lesser-known to the broad public, I'm sure none of this will be news to the majority of JWfans!) https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/media-scotus-same-sex-weddings-music/john-williams-film-scores
  4. Here's one -- a familiar tune but maybe not the most familiar context.
  5. Here's to you, @Ricard! The importance of this site and this forum, to me and so many others, is hard to overstate.
  6. It's really great, isn't it? I know enough about Williams's style of interviewing that a) his responses are often a little rehearsed and massaged and b) this one really does capture his incredible autobiographical memory and poetic sensibility towards his life and art. Also, I didn't know he remembered that the SW opening title initially began with that tiny run up! Who else remembers first listening to the "secret" track on the ANH Special Edition in 97 and just being blown away?!
  7. Falstaft

    Fugues!

    Shark Cage is brilliant. The quartal organization of the subject is really nicely reflected in the Orca Theme. I had the Kent Kennan counterpoint book as an undergrad too, and it's excellent. But really, the best teacher is Bach. Just sit down with the Well Tempered Clavier some time. Start by flagrantly copying him. You'll pick up on the technique through imitation. Haha, my cocktail napkins are definitely not worth preserving! The whole talk isn't really fit for sharing in the state it's in. But this thread has given me a spur to revisit it and turn it into a proper article. Once I get this other big thing out of the way, it'll probably be my next JW project. Oh, and here's a "Guess That Score" challenge. Can anyone place where this canonic passage from Williams comes from, and why it may be an especially appropriate use of the technique?:
  8. Falstaft

    Fugues!

    I've been summoned! Exact definitions differ between theorists of course, but there is a pretty stable consensus concerning what's genuinely fugal, what's canonical or imitative, and what's just polyphonically busy. For a fugue, it's all about that incremental feeling. One voice introduces the fugue's main idea ("subject") in full, then another comes in repeating it while the first offers a countermelody ("answer"), and so on. Traditionally, these need to be at quite specific tonal levels -- the second either in ("real") or on ("tonal") the key of the dominant. And back and forth it goes until all seperate contrapuntal strands are introduced, usually 3-4 voices in total. I'm simplifying a lot, though it's worth pointing out that Williams almost never writes fugues by completely by the "book." The key thing is that feeling of accretion, of rising intricacy, of one melodic subject chasing another, As breathtaking as it is, I'm afraid there's nothing fugal in the Asteroid Field. March of the Resistance's middle section includes definite but quite unconventional fugal exposition that modulates up by fifth three times, from F to D, and doesn't have a consistent countersubject. A few years ago I gave a talk on all things neo-Baroque in Williams, which included transcribing all of his fugues, fugatos, and canonic passages. It's a marvelous thing to behold. In any case, my vote is for Black Sunday.
  9. Hmm, it sounds surprisingly one-to-one with JE's Reunion to me -- is there a bit in particular you're hearing that harmonically diverges from what JW wrote in that cue? Maybe my ears are disintegrating! Whoa! Never seen that before.
  10. Found this on YouTube -- quite a good arrangement:
  11. @ConorPower, don't tempt me, I've got enough on my plate right now!
  12. Hows this for a hint? It's from an Indiana Jones score
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