tony69

well in past, violists were violinists who were not good enough to be on the 1st or 2nd violins. this happens in high schools too in the hardcore orchestras. they usually dont have enough violists, so some violinists are made to place viola. also, viola has in general been the least important of the strings. Violins usually the prima donna. Bass very important. Cello has recently gotten lots of melodic material (in romantic). But violas have very little solo material. (i can only think of parts of don quixote and harold in italy). most composers dont write for solo viola, incl. williams. Of course now its kind of changing. Usually violas have rhythmic or harmonic roles so not many people like to play violas. And: Why is a bassoon better than an oboe? The bassoon burns longer.

yeah, ask him if he worked out and did a Brad Pitt for Troy. lol. also ask him if he's goinna secretly record the recording sessions and post them to JWFan before the score gets released

someone who's recording this should record every bit with JW in it. from leno's mention of him at the beginning all the way to the end. (like the whole episode) so we can savour it to its fullest.

JP is soooooo goood. the score AND the movie. one of my favourite spielberg movies. it is just so...fun. and gorgeosu. Lost world was just crap. the movie ruined it for the score.

that orchestra sucks. they stole my group's acronym (TSO) btw. but unfortunatly, the TSO hasn't played much williams other than the Star WArs concert last year (premier too!). Hopefully they'll do a bit more of williams. I mean TSO is second best orch in canada, after the OSM of course.

is antonio iglesias related to enrique iglesias? thought i'd pop that in...

yup, i was obviously referring to Peter and the wolf too. low oboe=very duckyish. upper oboe on the other hand sounds sorta wistful if played slowly. course i'm a clarinetist so i am prejudiced against oboists. Musicians are quite instrumentist (or instrument racist) towards other people. like violinists hate violists (joke: bad violinists become violists lollllll).

tis true. ANH is not my favourite star wars score. yes it started the series but i rather love ROTJ or ROTS. being jwfans dont mean we have to vote 10 for ANH in particular. i reserve the best ratings of 11 to SL, JP and ET. Those three are too good and will never be beat.

do not be highly hopeful. munich score is unnoticeable in the film, generally. only during a few scenes does the music really seem to be audible (including the final sex scene, which was so not hot).

for the uneducated muscial person, english horn and oboe are different. english horn is to oboe as horn is to trumpet (soundwise). oboe sounds like a duck. its more piercing, nasal and bitey. english horn is prettier, gentler. famous english horn solo (classically): william tell overture, the pastoral looney tunes type of music part.

its a 6 to me. i've never really enjoyed ANH in comparison to the other 5. it could be the absence of darth vader theme. or the crappy sound quality (in comparison to ROTJ onwards). mainly i think it was JW when he was not as emotional as he is now. imo, he was too immature at that time(compositionwise), so his score for ANH lacks the emotional quality that appears in the later scores and the end of ROTJ imo. my rating: ANH=6 ESB=7 ROTJ=9 TPM=8 AOTC=7 ROTS=10

realistically, john will die. i have heard no news of ill health or surgery required (in newspapers) so i am very glad. i wonder what the newspapers will say when he passes away. will they ignore him or mention in passing like they did for jerry? or will it be like big news?

its funny to read this msg. obviously munich is worth getting, since it and geisha are the scores most likely to be nominated for williams this year. but i must say there are scores worth not getting. EXAMPLE Born on the fourth of July. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWw. That was like 20 minute score and rest songs. I wanted the score! not the soundtrack. so that would be an example of one not worth getting. (will there be a re-release of the score itself soon? )

noooo someone changed the name of the post! it was supposed to be oscar no. 6 which clearly showed the excitement we are to feel. it encapsulated in 3 words the feeling. the new name is lame. what sort of name is OFFICIAL 2005 Best Score Oscar Thread? let's have a poll to get rid of the name . jks. but onto a more serious note, munich is probably off the oscar list. nothing of munich was on golden globes except for like best picture. spielberg was dumb. wait a month, then go join next year's oscar race. he probably would have a much better movie and won too. not that munich was bad, it wasn't. it was a bit rushed however.

as i stated at the beginning of my thread, williams and oscars = high probability. golden globes does sway oscar votes. may i add one more thing. all of williams's wins prior to geisha won oscars. so enuf said.

if memoirs gets nominated, part of it will definately be for best costume/art direction or whatever that thingy is. plus the score obviousyl.

however, newman didn't write all the music so williams is still better. newman was head of fox music department (back during the studio system). he often conducted and recorded all the scores but he didn't necessarily write them all. they were just credited to his name.

Good news. Conti is conducting oscars. That means williams has a good chance. in past, williams conducted even though he was nominated (indicating that he had no chance of winning, cuz seriously, how do u get someone to walk on stage when he's supposed to be conducting?)

but i think if williams got it for memoirs, he'll be really happy. he did say he liked working on memoirs and really wanted to do that movie. so if u think about it like that, he put the most effort into that score and so if he wins, mhm. but the most important part is IF williams wins, most of the people on this fanboard will get to hear his acceptance speech live for the first time! (i'm assuming most people here were too young when schindler's list came out:p to care about hearing best original score.)

Looks like williams is the leading contender for best score. See oscarwatch.com. It seems geisha is expected to win:). oscar number 6.

someone might get a score rejected and williams be called on to do the score in 2006? that happened with the patriot. one can only hope:).

elitist? not really. i'm just a composition student lol. we have to study these pieces which u find difficult to listen to. music does not have to evoke an emotion. that derives from the Romantic notion of music (which surprisingly is similar to the Baroque). The classical tradition did not concentrate that much on emotions. It was more music for music's sake than music for a programmatic purpose. as well, where/when/why is much more rewarding as it helps put you in the right mindset of the piece. suppose u saw a garden and thought it was very pretty and took pictures in it. however, its purpose was in fact to remember the dead. only if u knew its purpose would u be in the best position to respect the garden. same thing with music. if you knew that everything beethoven did derived from 4 motives (sixth) or that it was related to napoleon (eroica), etc., then one arguably would be in a better position to listen to music than to one who has less background knowledge. the purpose of 4 minutes 33 seconds is to illustrate two ideas. A) the most important idea is that the very definition of music depends on the listener. 4' 33 forces us to challenge our definition of music. in the past it was something between "notated sounds" and "euphonious group of notes". 4'33 forces us to consider that music is "a group of sounds with some sort of intention." Thus, if the composer intends for wants indeterminacy or chance occurences to be a part of the music, then it will be music!! That is the reason why 4'33 is so pinnacle, since never before had a piece stressed this idea to its fullest. B) the other idea is that silence IS music. rests are a part of music. imagine a piece without any rests. it would be very smooth/legato but rests add some variety plus excitement. imagine beethoven's fifth after the exposition, and going STRAIGht to the development. it lacks the tension of what is actually going to happen? or the famous niente attack, again arises out of this idea. a sound comes out from nothing, then fades back to nothing to the silence. so 4'33 by having no sound illustrates this point further. its interesting that he chose 4'33 as the duration because that is the "standard length of 'canned' music." (i think that refers to the standard length of pop songs). also, the idea for this piece came when he went into a soundproof room, yet still heard two tones: the high was his nervous system, the low his blood in circulation. it was then he realized that sound can never be destroyed. sorry bout this long message btw. but i think discussion is good .

I dont see why you hate 20th century music. It is strange that music is always the last artform in which changes are hard to accept. 20th century literature (ex. theatre of absurd, imaginism) or 20th century paintings (ex. rothko, picasso or that toilet seat) are all pioneered and applauded for their ingenuity. but most people snort when they listen to cages 4 minutes 33 seconds, schoenbergs 2nd quartet last movement or penderecki's threnody. It is important to realize that most composers do have regular harmonic training, however they choose to write 'eclectic' pieces. for instance, music in undergrad at my university involves 2 years of regular training then 20th century techniques. i think its important to remember music echoes the era in which it was written. one should remember the 20th century is the century of disillusionment. post World War 1 resulted in so much wierd stuff from all corners of art. the music obviously is supposed to illustrate that. then we start getting really creative and music is written in the most creative ways. this is what art is of the late 20th century. then that piece by vitiello illlustrates the growth of the electronic medium, only made possible by the 20th century fascination wtih technology. i think 20th century music sounds wonderful, but of course u have to listen based on where it was written. listening with knowledge of the background makes a much rewarding listen to any piece from beethoven's ninth to stuff by xenakis or even our very own williams.

2 problems. 1) composer has no control over his property. they have no/little say in the final film, unless its produced by them, such as phantom of the opera. as well, the final written score does NOT belong to the composer but rather the studio. it will never be sold in its original conception (perhaps arranged for piano tho). nor will it be played in concerts because of such problem of ownership of rights. and since most composers want longetivity of some sorts (to be played by people around the world), this poses a big problem. even if the studio leases the music, it is ridiculously expensive. ex. Themes and variations 2) the audience does not want to listen to 20th century music. they like 16-19th century romanticism because they have been conditioned to listen to tonality. no one wants a love theme that is very late schoenbergian. it sounds really awkward to us. the realm that most 20th century styles of music can be used is sci fi, yet there is not many good sci fi movies, hence no composers are drawn to it. i said most since there are exceptions. minimalism works well in drama as can be seen in the hours.

well the thing with composers are that most people judge them by their most famous works. Like stravinsky, he's only very well known for his first period, and few people would know that he delved into complete atonality in his third period. With williams, the general population only knows him for the heroic sort of sound, aka star wars, indiana jones, harry potter, etc. To them it sounds the same, and that sort of sound is a bit overused in movies, which explains why many composition teachers view williams with disgust. This overused sound reminds them of commercialized music and stuff like bubblegum pop, etc, and thats why williams is not well recognized. Of course williams is quite an experimenter. But does anyone know him for Soundings? Or moviescore wise, Nixon or Minority Report? No one would immediately associate him with those scores (unless for MR, they knew spielbergs relationship to williams). Also, orchestration teachers considers williams to be quite simplistic since he unnecessarily doubles everything (see any signature edition, last repeat of main melody thru). the trend with 20th century music is to move towards more refined sounds where every timbre is carefully chosen. williams use of doubling say EHn, Cl, Bsn, Hn, Vn1+2, Va would be considered redundant. However, williams IS the best orchestrator of the currently alive composers. He does have many great effects, etc. Ex. Chamber of secrets, string sul. ponticello near the beginning. simply wonderful use. one last reason i think why williams is considered to be less than the major 20th century composers like ligeti or bartok, is because he looked backwards too much. people only know him well for his post-romantic tonal stuff. so many people look at him as a person in the wrong age, etc. That's what happened with korngold when he tried to get back into classical music near the end of his career. At the beginning of his career, he was a genius. In his teens he could write operas in the postromantic fashion. But when he tried to come back 30-40 years later, he was looked as old-fashioned and in this new era, who really likes old fashioned things? thats just my shpeal. hope that helps illustrate some things about why williams is 'bad' to classical professors. myself, i love williams, and think he's the best of movie composers.