lairdo

Mine came today too and disc 1 is ripping while I type. I use DBpoweramp and the tracks all populated correctly. I suspect it pulled the info from Discogs (which @Positivatee linked above).

It's only a ripoff if you buy it and feel you did not receive fair value for your money. If you don't purchase, there is no rip off. I doubt La-La Land are laughing all the way to the bank at all. The economics of these releases is that no one release is all that lucrative, although this is perhaps better than others because a lot of work was used for the box set. And, look at Kritzerland Records needing to run an IndieGoGo campaign to help it stay in business. Intrada has been using Kickstarter to fund new recordings (and happily moving more of its catalog to digital). GNP Crescendo is gone. Film Score Monthly had to stop with its line of releases (now many years ago, but for economic reasons). Varese and Quartet still seem to be producing a plethora of interesting and new discs, but who knows how their financials are. Look at the economy in general and know that inflation hits these companies too, such as in the cost of the printing, CD cases and manufacturing. And all the labels know that piracy drains potential sales. As I wrote earlier, I see this as as smart use of existing assets and licenses in the same way every other record label has repackaged their catalog for years and years. The benefit is that great material stays in print and new material can be launched. I feel the same way that some labels are producing LPs of the exact same material, taking advantage of the recent surge in interest in analog and probably even there treading much more on nostalgia purchases than actual utility.

I would love a symphony from Williams. In some ways, since his symphony from the 60's was removed from circulation (not that it was played that often), the lack of a symphony is actually odd given how much music Williams has composed for the concert hall. I agree that his usual motivations are to work with other musicians, and in those cases, the impetus would be lessened in working with an institution such as the Philadelphia Orchestra or the Boston Symphony. It's hard to form a connection with a large group of musicians versus a select few at a time (Ma, Mutter, Ma & Zhou, etc). And symphonies are still being written. Williams would certainly know many of the American ones in the 20th century: Copland wrote 3, Bernstein 3, Hanson 4, Diamond a bunch, Billy Schuman a bunch, Glass, some of John Adams' works are sort of symphonies. Beyond the US, Stravinsky as mentioned, Britten wrote some smaller ones, Shostakovich wrote 15, his friend Weinberg more than that, Prokofiev, Part, Norberg, and of course there are those of Walton and Vaughan Williams JW must know. In this century, Glass continues to write them (as noted above). Mason Bates is another composer who has. John Harbison another. John Corigliano finished his third. However, if much of these are not ringing bells, it's because most of them have not entered the repertory. Beyond the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, directed by Gil Rose and highly recommended for their output, orchestras don't play new symphonies very often. They commission smaller pieces that can open concerts but not anchor them. So, new stuff gets played once, maybe twice. However, concerti and other works for specific artists do get played at least in the first few years. Look how often Violin Concerto No. 2 has been played in less than a year, and not always with Williams at the podium. I am sure Mutter is playing pieces from Across the Stars as encores in some of her non-Williams related performances as well. I would not describe the desire for one's work to be played to ego per se, but I do think Williams can take pleasure from the work being out there and heard. A symphony would work against that to some extent due to its size and lack of a singular champion. Of course, there are a number of Williams pieces that are played regularly. The olympic music and many of the marches are staples of military and school bands. Schindler's List's music is popular for soloists and shows up on recording all the time. But a symphony is not something that just drops in from time to time. It takes a lot of work for an orchestra and conductor to learn it. So, that might also limit its appeal to Williams to write it. The two big genres that are also absent from Williams output are ballet and opera. Ballet is probably too akin to a film to be interesting to him. (He actually has referred to his film music as being closer to ballet music than opera.) Williams has said in the past he would have been interested in doing an opera but was not interested in spending the 4 years to do it. This was around 10 years ago I think. It's a shame though that he did not do one as it would have been an interesting combination of his symphonic and vocal writing for a different visual medium. But similar to symphonies, new operas rarely enter mass performance runs either. I think Mason Bates and Jake Hegge have had a few of their output gain some traction, and maybe Terrance Blanchard's recent work "Fire Shut Up in My Bones" for the MetOpera will gain longer attention. But it's rare. (Blanchard of course is also a film composer - Red Tails for example.) Ultimately, whatever the motivations, I am thankful for any new works in any format. But I would love to hear a symphony all the same even if the economics and realities of concert hall performances are against it.

Thanks, Jay for the nice comments and of course spending the time to listen. Ron and I have actually gone through a number of movies in similar fashion (Jaws, Jaws 2, Raiders, Temple of Doom, and a few others, all 4 original Superman movies), although having Mike made this all the more magical. Mike is just dialed in! We were honored to spend so much time with him.

Ordered!

Ah thanks. And yes, I am aware of the inherent minimal playback reasons for HD. Still I like them, but really the benefit of the higher resolutions is for master archival purposes.

@crumbs You beat me by a min! (But you may want to edit out the last 6 lines about Patriot Games. Never mind, you fixed it as I was writing.) My take - it's nice to have the original album available in remastered sound. It has always been a great listen, and it's really amazing to think that 70 mins was released back then. I do wonder if the digital release might get updated at HD resolutions as that could be swapped in for the existing digital masters out there now. (Which is actually already at 196/24 now that I look at HDtracks.com.) Hmm. In any case, I'm happy to have this in my collection and will order tomorrow. I have no problem with La-La Land releasing something is pretty much a lot of previous content. As noted above, some folks don't have it and are paying high eBay prices if they want a physical copy, and La-La Land and other should be able to use the material they developed and paid for anyway they need. There are no different than Warner Bros, Sony, DG, Decca and other labels getting more mileage from their catalog with box sets and other combos. Look at the Philips JW Boston Pops set. They did not even remaster it. I am all for these wonderful companies thriving and helping us be satiated for all the wonderful music they bring us.

And we have orbit! Part 2 has launched and can be found here: http://theindycast.com/indycast-special-the-magic-of-john-williams-62-part-2/ In this episode, we really cover the bulk of the maestro's music from launch to landing where most of the spotting put the orchestral work. Ed Dolista, our host, used my MP3 version which should sound fine even with the noise reduction I had to apply. However, if you prefer it uncompressed, here are those links. Part 2 uncompressed WAV Part 2 uncompressed ALAC As always, a huge thanks to Mike Matessino for all his insights and time to share them. Laird PS: Part 1 can be still be found with these links ALAC - https://mega.nz/file/fNR0XCqL#zfP-spAvOsv_cwuGF00Qc2jJp9n85LP_wxkE3BIuo3k WAV - https://mega.nz/file/TNxiiYTK#lf3PzbWRl72f88qrs0gjE0wW5Fc5HvwSL0snBfZrYqs

Thanks! Part 2 should finally come out tomorrow (July 4!). We were backed up behind the regular IndyCast last week. I'll post the uncompressed files here as the audio issues were the same (since we recorded the whole thing in one long session). Only 90 mins for part 2 Update: Might be tomorrow (July 5) as Ed, our host, was very busy over the past week and is behind.

Good find. I think Holt is doing a good job of being honest without being too bitter. It's easy to imagine she felt yanked around by the Lucasfilm powers. I am not sure I read that Chow or Holt were the wrong people at all. I feel this is more saying that the direction they got (or assumed they had to go towards) was to be "different." Not because that is a big break with the past but more that they would not have been allowed to create something like Rogue One for Obi-Wan. Maybe I am not reading between the lines enough though. I saw the video interview with Holt, and she exuded positivity. I hope this experience does not damper her excitement as a composer too much for whatever projects are the best fit for her. The final episode (which I saw this week finally) just made me sad about the whole show and what could have been but was not.

I love the Clear and Present Score. One of my favorite Horner scores (which is saying something given how many great movies he composed). I actually worked on the sound edit for about a week in June of 1994, moonlighting from Sony in the evenings to help a friend of mine get all the dialogue finished. I worked on the scene where the drug lord bad guy is in the batting cage and switches from Spanish to English dialogue. It was a lot of fun to be on the Paramount lot and to help on the movie in some small way.

Ha ha. I read it the week it came out! It was great. Agreed though that the link between the soundtrack and book is pretty tenuous.

I know this was mentioned on another Obi-Wan Kenobi thread that Canadian violinist James Ehnes performed on the score. It's a nice connection given Ehnes has played the JW first violin concerto Stephane Deneve from time to time. Here's an article I found about his involvement. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/arts/from-tatooine-with-love-576468612.html

Presto has it too which might be faster and cheaper for some folks. (Thought, they don't have the 10" vinyl.) https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9329243--williams-violin-concerto-no-2-selected-film-themes Well, I think that ASM continues to understand the work better and better. I just listened to the Philly version again this weekend, and it is very tight. Carnegie Hall sounds great (as do Symphony Hall in Boston). Probably a toss up between the two in terms of performance. I would say the Philadelphia Orchestra is probably considered stronger now than the BSO, but the BSO does love to play for JW. There is one big caveat though on preference which is why I think the released version is better. At the end of the piece, there is a very loud clunk on the radio broadcast. It's quite audible and gets in the way of the ending. This is not a criticism of the recording of course - just an unfortunate accident.

That's cool! (And I do think Mike should get one too.)

For sure! But what does Samantha Winslow think of all this? I wonder if JW's reaction to Daisy was because he did not know she was there at all. Of course, he knew ASM was performing since that was announced and probably they discussed Markings again. But perhaps he literally had no advanced notion that Daisy was going to be there and sing to him?

Exciting news! Based on glancing at the NY Phil's Archive, I believe the last public performance leading the Phil that JW did was in October 2011 with Gil Shaham on violin. https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/42df5a5e-bf49-4ad3-98ca-35eaee73dcf1-0.1/fullview#page/1/mode/2up Of course, Williams recently conducted the NY Phil to create A Gathering of Friends but that was not a public event. He also contributed a video tribute for the online gala during COVID, but that was spoken not conducted.

Thanks, Jay. Glad you liked it. There is another chunk to follow. Alas, there was a technical issue which resulting in having to do a lot of clean up to even get to this point. Mike in fact did record locally, and while he could not hear it on his end when we recorded, the issue was there in both his local and my remote recording. We discussed re-recording (Mike kindly volunteering to do so), but he was so open and insightful the first time, I felt we could not capture that magic again. I do suspect that when Ed (our IndyCast host) recompressed the file, the situation got exacerbated. Here are the uncompressed versions (WAV and ALAC) for those who have not listened already. I'll post an uncompressed link to part 2 when it is ready as well. (Sorry the files are so big - I edit everything at 96 and just left it at that rate to reduce artifacts.) Thanks again for listening, Laird ALAC - https://mega.nz/file/fNR0XCqL#zfP-spAvOsv_cwuGF00Qc2jJp9n85LP_wxkE3BIuo3k WAV - https://mega.nz/file/TNxiiYTK#lf3PzbWRl72f88qrs0gjE0wW5Fc5HvwSL0snBfZrYqs

It's a good idea to tweet them. I imagine the rights are the issue. But heck, I'll do it. The rights are their issue! I do foresee that DG is starting to have enough material to issue a JW on DG box set in 2-3 years. This would include the recent albums, the Boston Symphony Tree Song album and maybe the Sinfonietta. (They would not include the other pieces in a JW box set.) Possibly also the LA Phil Celebrating John Williams album, and if we are stretching, some of their other artists playing JW pieces. (Many of their soloists and orchestras have recording JW music.) They won't want to blunt the sales for the 4 albums they have out now (Across the Stars, Vienna, Berlin, VCNo 2), but I could see a set in the future. Since they own universal and Decca, there are definitely soundtracks that are also in the family of rights which would make the whole thing a lot bigger.

Actually, that is an image of Atlantis Challenger (good spotting @crumbs) as seen from the Space Station. The image is not from the movie. The marks are used to measure things in the image and are present in the original. That image shows something in the back of the payload bay of the orbiter, and in the film, the bay is empty. But, bizarrely, besides cropping the image, the artist actually flipped the direction of the craft (presumably to represent the sense of going back to earth as is the main drama of the 2nd half of the movie). You can see in the original image the clouds and coastline are the same, but the orbiter correctly points upwards in the process of docking.

I think after the next issue (e.g. August 2022), you can email to order a back issue. https://www.magsubscriptions.com/back-issues Shipping to the US from the UK might be as much as the cost of the issue. I am not sure, but I think Barnes & Noble (if you have one nearby) carries Gramophone in single issues. I just don't know the lag between the UK publication date and the arrival on US shelves. Update: Just found Newsstand.co.uk will take orders for the JW July issue which they show as arriving on June 15 to their shop. Look at this page (which is for the June issue). There is a small line where one can add the July issue to the shopping cart. The company ships worldwide. About US$15 for an issue including 1st class postage. https://www.newsstand.co.uk/187-classical-music-magazines/1040-subscribe-to-gramophone-monthly-magazine-subscription.aspx For a single digital copy, check out: https://pocketmags.com/us/gramophone-magazine $6.99 per issue.

Awesome. Thank you!

In the new cover story in July 2022's Gramophone issue featuring the Concertos of John Williams, the author references that the Sinfonietta of 1965 was released in 1972 and reviewed that year by the magazine. Curious, I found the old issue - nearly 50 years old - online. https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/33101/spread/1 Here are the two pages extracted that talk about Williams. The first page is from there updates section on composers and musical artists. The second page features the review of the disc itself. Alas, the reviewer was not really impressed. I rather like the album (which is long out of print but copies can be found on LP and much more rarely on CD from Japan). It's an early exploration by Williams and just before the Symphony which we will likely never get to hear.

Ah, yes. Certainly from the same session though. Photographer: "Now look to the right, Masetro. Ok, that's great. Maybe slightly wistful now? Yes, that's it. A bit to the left. Think of those Christmas Cookies from Anne-Sophie... but maybe less delight, perhaps a bit of the guilt about needing to compose some notes? Yes, yes, yes! That's brilliant. You're a star, baby!"

It is indeed. BBC cropped in a bit more than this image.