Foxfan

My problem with balcony seats is that all too often the brass drowns out the strings. Also, I once sat right at the front-right corner of the 1st balcony for the best view, but the sound was horrible (big tuba blaring straight into my ears, drowning out everything else).

25 for second balcony. unfortunately they really jacked up the orch seats ($85)

Most of the Pops concerts are broadcast live on the radio in Boston, so there's no point of sneaking a cheap recorder in when someone can just record a high-quality stereo broadcast of it. Right now I just hope it won't be the same program (with tributes to other composers) as the one at Tanglewood. I mean, come on, this is Williams' 75th anniversary! The tributes need to be to him! It would be nice to hear stuff rarely performed, like Earthquake, Heartbeeps, Monsignor, etc.

http://www.bso.org/listB/printschSeasons.j...es&area=sch I'm a little disappointed by the HP saturation though (it's been played way too many times in the past few years). I was hoping for a broader range of Williams' repertoire due to his 75th anniversary. Also they're putting the tickets on sale almost right away (March 5)! That doesn't leave me much time to decide. I've been every year in the past four years, but if it's just HP I'm not too sure.

Is it possible that JW was at the piano and that no one was conducting? Since this was done in a recording studio, I assume that the players had metronome click-tracks in their ears which would have significantly reduced the need for a conductor during the actual recording performance.

When are the Boston concerts???

Well, the final chord ends at 11:02 on the file I had, so I'm pretty sure the ripper didn't edit out the end. With that said, unfortunately the sample you sent me didn't match either. Thanks anyway. Also, if it can be of some help, the position of the horns and trumpets are inverted in the recording I'm looking for (trumpets sound in the middle and horns are on the right). The strings are OK.

Thanks for the file, but unfortunately that wasn't the one.

I downloaded an MP3 of the fourth movement of this symphony on Napster back in 2001, and have gotten so used to the tempo and balance of this recording that anything else disappoints me. I'm desperately looking for the original so I can get the full symphony at a higher bitrate. Anyone know of a database that can recognize waveform data or somewhere I can send the file to in order to find a match? I've listened to hundreds of Amazon.com samples and still haven't found the right one. The file tag had no mention of the orchestra or anything else. All I have is the file's running time of 11:13. Any help would be appreciated!

Darn. With all those concerts on the west coast, I hope he'll still have time and energy to do his yearly spring concerts in Boston. I'm hoping for a big Williams 75th celebration with lots of earlier pieces.

Well, WOTW is a Paramount film, so I guess CBS would have the rights to it since they are both under the same owner.

I don't like the Advertures on Earth arrangement anyway. Why not stick to the original 15-minute sequence? The flow is much more natural...

Hey. I was at that concert (front row just on the right of the podium)! If it wasn't for the railing you would have seen me.

It is really strange how LIMITED this release was! First, it was never available in Canada. In the U.S. most stores never got a copy of it, and those who were sold it for about $45. I bought it when they had a few this summer for $29.99USD, and it sold out really quickly. I don't think there were more than a few thousand of these printed. The JW featurette wasn't that great. If I remember correctly, I don't even think the video of scoring sessions matched the music being played.

Once again, two nominations to split the vote and leave a third-place nominee win.

Funny, this is the one song where I like the singing. The choir is good, except for the one kid who went out of tune during the first "see me through the dark night" passage.

No, actually I was just hoping for an answer to my question about the speed on the original CD and if there will be a difference in pitch between the old one and the new Varese edition.

Well, I filled up 6 CD-Rs with selections from everything of Williams' I could get my hands on. The 6th disc (from "The Patriot" to the present) is now completely filled at 79 minutes. If he composes anything else, I'll have to scale everything back to make room. In the event that he has unofficially retired from composing, I hope he still considers the Boston Pops tradition every May. I'm hoping for one heck of a good concert in 2007 as a celebration for his 75th birthday.

Bump. Only three weeks before Christmas. Keep this thread alive, people!

Are you referring to the NY April 2006 concert? But at that concert a section came in to early in A Prayer for Peace from Munich. It was after the big dramatic pause, well half of them came in a half a second to early while the other half came in on time (or so it sounded like) well end result, not pretty noise effect and one of John Williams stares that make me want to go into a nice corner. I was sitting far from the stage and I still saw it. Not pretty. I'm trying to think how they would have messed this up. Is this piece written in duple meter? Maybe that would have caused problems. If it was written in 4, the deep low chord would have been on the third beat, so there was no way the violins could have mistaken it for the first beat.

THRONE ROOM AND FINALE!!!

What? They didn't call the audio issues a "deliberate creative decision"???

There's also Schumann's Piano Concerto (snore). Obviously, it will be hard for the orchestra to surpass what they played yesterday; Strauss' Alpine Symphony. That concert was amazing!

I'm going to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's performance of this tomorrow and never heard it before (and don't have time to borrow a CD of it). Given that Elgar was apparently Williams' favorite composer, what should I expect when listening to this in concert? Any striking similarities to Williams' work?

Oh. I thought it was "American Journey" that was considered to be his second symphony...