Falstaft

EDIT: 3 posts down...

This makes me wonder what thread they stumbled upon in order to come up with this statement...

Until someone calls a piece/cue/track/theme a "song"...

@Gibster look at the mess we've created. 

That's the best description of JwFan I've ever seen

Someone needs to photoshop a J-team logo in the style of The A-Team stat

Here's an interesting analysis of JWFan from the reddit thread about this rumor:
 
"
FWIW: the randos on the John Williams fan forums are surprisingly well-connected folks when it comes to this sort of thing. It's a remarkably unique community in that they're so singularly obsessed with a figure that isn't frequently known for that level of obsession, and they've been more or less a close-knit (it's like, 30-40 people there driving all the conversation) community in pursuit of unearthing literally EVERYTHING even tangentially related to that man's work for almost... damn, 20 years now. And the amount of stuff they get, and get right, is pretty high.
 
They're sort of like a highly specialized nerd commando unit trained to do one thing: Find out everything there is to know about John Williams. The J-Team, if you will.
 
That all said: I would not recommend doing anything other than lurking that place. But then again, you don't really need to do anything more than lurk that place if you're interested in John Williams (or film scoring in general).
"

Of the four concerts I’ve attended, this was by far the most incredible. 

In general, I'm starting to doubt the Variety JW announcement.  Especially considering the lack of official confirmation and the fact that some information in the article was later redacted.  

They're keeping it secret because John Williams scored the whole thing 

An even more literal quote is the passage immediately before the soprano entrance, see at 2:15 here:
 
 
 
The very distinctive chord is exactly the same as the "twinkling stars" chord from the Star Wars Main Title, see 1:47 here:
 
 
 
The instrumentation and the general mood are also very similar.
 
 

Added 3 new reactions...

Found this announcement on Twitter.  Not sure what it exactly the collaboration would entail but it would be crazy if true.
 
The translation -
"A project is underway with John William, a master who works on movie music such as "STAR WARS" and "Jurassic Park", which I personally love, and Deutsche Grammophon, the largest classical label! When I was in high school, I was playing John's songs such as "ET" in the orchestra club, and I want to teach myself that I will be connected to work in the future"
Maybe they would be using something from one of the recent concert recordings?

It's an interesting comparison -- the Debussy is certainly an influential piece, though there's so much from Williams that already sounds like this part of "The Rise of Skywalker" track, I hesitate to draw a direct linkage. More likely, aspects of Debussy's writing (planing, quasi-modality, woodwind chorales) were already long-integrated into JW's style. And in this particular case, you got the vague contours of Rey's Chimes also possibly serving as a reference-point for this theme.
 
Now, if you want an almost certainly accidental but nevertheless cool link between Nuages and Rey's Chimes, check out this passage from Myaskovsky's 6th Symphony (1923) -- for a long time best known of his 27!. Uncanny, right?
 
   
 
 
Whoa. That bit at 19:44 is certainly a more striking sound-alike to the Imperial Motif than a lot of other things I've heard it compared to (Tchaikovsky, "Arabian Dance" from Nutcracker for ex, pfff). Right down to the little grace-note figure before the final chord.
 
Agree it's harder to make a case that Williams had this to refer to than a lot of other purported cases of similarity -- though it's not out of the question. Seems Henze is channeling Stravinsky throughout this section anyway, so maybe that's the shared ancestor of both. Still, quite a remarkable resemblance! Thanks for introducing me to this piece, @Loert

It's an interesting comparison -- the Debussy is certainly an influential piece, though there's so much from Williams that already sounds like this part of "The Rise of Skywalker" track, I hesitate to draw a direct linkage. More likely, aspects of Debussy's writing (planing, quasi-modality, woodwind chorales) were already long-integrated into JW's style. And in this particular case, you got the vague contours of Rey's Chimes also possibly serving as a reference-point for this theme.
 
Now, if you want an almost certainly accidental but nevertheless cool link between Nuages and Rey's Chimes, check out this passage from Myaskovsky's 6th Symphony (1923) -- for a long time best known of his 27!. Uncanny, right?
 
   
 
 
Whoa. That bit at 19:44 is certainly a more striking sound-alike to the Imperial Motif than a lot of other things I've heard it compared to (Tchaikovsky, "Arabian Dance" from Nutcracker for ex, pfff). Right down to the little grace-note figure before the final chord.
 
Agree it's harder to make a case that Williams had this to refer to than a lot of other purported cases of similarity -- though it's not out of the question. Seems Henze is channeling Stravinsky throughout this section anyway, so maybe that's the shared ancestor of both. Still, quite a remarkable resemblance! Thanks for introducing me to this piece, @Loert

Conrad Pope says
 
"A friend of mine shared with me this newspaper article from 1949. Scroll down beyond the Britten part to the section called "Phuff." There, the columnist writes about a young band of teenage musicians from North Hollywood High School.
The "Curly" of the article is John Williams. NHHS was the alma of other iconic musicians including Paula Robison and John Neufeld, among others. The article clearly shows you're never too young -or too old- NOT to take music seriously. It also shows that over a lifetime dedicated to music,wherever JW stood, he always stood out! Hope you enjoy the read. "
 

(click to embiggen)

Yep, while I'm a fan of Svetlanov's "musical sensibilites", the playing in that set can get quite shoddy in places. Clearly some symphonies are more rehearsed than others. For example I think the performance of the 24th is really good, but the 4th...well, the less said the better. But ultimately, as far as I know it is the only complete set of Myaskovsky's symphonies though, so... up to you really! (I do wish another orchestra came round and did another complete set, Myaskovsky certainly deserves it).
 
EDIT: Looks like only symphonies 3, 19 and 22 were recorded during the USSR, the rest were recorded between 1991-3!

Cool, I think I'll get the Jarvi recording. Is the complete set conducted by Svetlanov worth getting? It's surprising reasonable on Presto (£28 for the whole lot!) but some of those USSR recordings can be a bit... rough.

Myaskovsky's 6th is amazing, blew my mind when I first heard it. Whichever recording you pick, make sure it has the choir in the last movement (the Jaarvi recording above has it, but I also recommend the live recording conducted by Kondrashin).
 

Some interesting comparisons with the Debussy, Henze and Myaskovsky there; more at the stylistic influences end of the spectrum than specific and obvious passages, but this kind of thing is what led me to a huge love of classical music (I made the jump from James Horner to Prokofiev and rarely looked back!). I have a few Myaskovsky symphonies but not the 6th but I shall clearly have to rectify this (I mean, 27 is a lot... most composers after Mozart and Haydn barely reached double figures!).
 
I'm trying to work out if I heard some Henze and didn't like it or if I'm confusing him with another composer (maybe one who did electronic music or processed sounds? - anyone know?!), but from listening to a few sections of Undine (or Ondine apparently), it's challenging but within my tolerance for astringent orchestral music. I think I'll have to check out the full thing. Ballet music often seems to be a good way into discovering a composer! Annoying that both the Henze and Myaskovsky aren't available on download from Presto though, 7Digital is way more expensive!

It's an interesting comparison -- the Debussy is certainly an influential piece, though there's so much from Williams that already sounds like this part of "The Rise of Skywalker" track, I hesitate to draw a direct linkage. More likely, aspects of Debussy's writing (planing, quasi-modality, woodwind chorales) were already long-integrated into JW's style. And in this particular case, you got the vague contours of Rey's Chimes also possibly serving as a reference-point for this theme.
 
Now, if you want an almost certainly accidental but nevertheless cool link between Nuages and Rey's Chimes, check out this passage from Myaskovsky's 6th Symphony (1923) -- for a long time best known of his 27!. Uncanny, right?
 
   
 
 
Whoa. That bit at 19:44 is certainly a more striking sound-alike to the Imperial Motif than a lot of other things I've heard it compared to (Tchaikovsky, "Arabian Dance" from Nutcracker for ex, pfff). Right down to the little grace-note figure before the final chord.
 
Agree it's harder to make a case that Williams had this to refer to than a lot of other purported cases of similarity -- though it's not out of the question. Seems Henze is channeling Stravinsky throughout this section anyway, so maybe that's the shared ancestor of both. Still, quite a remarkable resemblance! Thanks for introducing me to this piece, @Loert

It's an interesting comparison -- the Debussy is certainly an influential piece, though there's so much from Williams that already sounds like this part of "The Rise of Skywalker" track, I hesitate to draw a direct linkage. More likely, aspects of Debussy's writing (planing, quasi-modality, woodwind chorales) were already long-integrated into JW's style. And in this particular case, you got the vague contours of Rey's Chimes also possibly serving as a reference-point for this theme.
 
Now, if you want an almost certainly accidental but nevertheless cool link between Nuages and Rey's Chimes, check out this passage from Myaskovsky's 6th Symphony (1923) -- for a long time best known of his 27!. Uncanny, right?
 
   
 
 
Whoa. That bit at 19:44 is certainly a more striking sound-alike to the Imperial Motif than a lot of other things I've heard it compared to (Tchaikovsky, "Arabian Dance" from Nutcracker for ex, pfff). Right down to the little grace-note figure before the final chord.
 
Agree it's harder to make a case that Williams had this to refer to than a lot of other purported cases of similarity -- though it's not out of the question. Seems Henze is channeling Stravinsky throughout this section anyway, so maybe that's the shared ancestor of both. Still, quite a remarkable resemblance! Thanks for introducing me to this piece, @Loert

I think I posted about this a while ago in another thread, but some sections of Henze's Undine seem to have many stylistic similarities with Star Wars music, particularly the original trilogy. Now, that piece, despite being written in 1958, was only first recorded in 1996, so whether or not Williams could've "plagiarised" it is up for debate, but...here's an excerpt (19:34-19:55):
 
 
 
I hear a bit of Death Star, a bit of Imperials motif, even a bit of Rebel Fanfare...they both inhabit the same "musical space".
 

It's back in stock.
 
Consider investing into your thesis AND into the future of specialist record labels which make this music accesible to the public!

I'm surprised to read this opinion. To me the "friendship" theme is very weighty. It sounds to me like JW poured all his love and affection for Star Wars and the people he's worked with into that theme. It sounds far more emotional than the movie it was written for. The "victory" theme is less interesting but still appropriately celebratory.