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La-La Land Records' HOOK (2CD Expanded) Anticipation thread


Jay

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You just proved my point.

Maybe there's a language barrier here? I never once said that the Concorde was a bad place to get the Cornucopia Insert from.... all I ever said was that you want to grab just the insert, and not just take the entire 8 minute track whole.

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Jason, will this new release contain the songs from the musical?

I've been dying to hear the Pirate Song for years...

As far as I know none of the songs for musical were recorded but some of their themes might have migrated into the score. Jason?
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Obviously I won't be revealing the details of what is or isn't on the set, that is up to La-La Land to decide when that information gets posted (From what I understand, they won't be posting the track list until the CD is up for sale).

As far as a general question about proposed musical, let me set the record straight on that:

The long-standing internet rumor that there was a play about Peter Pan being worked on in the 80's by Williams and Bricusse, and that after that project fell apart, years later the songs were re-purposed as melodies for the Hook score, is false.

Leslie Bricusse was first brought on board to work on Hook in late '90 or early '91, after he collaborated with Williams on Home Alone. The two of them wrote and recorded several song demos, the names of which are "Stick With Me", "Believe", "Low Below", "When You're Alone", "We Don't Wanna Grow Up", "Pick Em Up", and "Childhood". There could be others, I'm not sure.

Only "When You're Alone", "Pick Em Up", and "We Don't Wanna Grow Up" got filmed and were included in the final picture, but the melodies of all the other songs became themes in the underscore. Going by the theme names fans have been using for years, "Stick With Me" = Hook's Theme, "Believe" = the Memory Theme / Neverland Theme, "Low Below" = the Pirate Theme, "Childhood" = Main Theme/ Peter's Theme / Neverland Theme. As far as I know, the themes referred to as the Flying Theme / Peter's Theme, the Conflict Theme / Prologue Theme, Hook's Secondary Theme, Lost Boys Theme, and Pan's Theme (You Are the Pan) did not have equivalent songs, but I could be wrong.

Hope that clears things up.

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Interesting information. Thanks Jason, our resident Hook-specialist. :)

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I thought it was pretty defined that Williams wrote a few songs for the aborted Peter Pan film musical Spielberg was preparing in mid/late 1980s. I think Williams himself spoke about it in several interviews.

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If you find sourced proof, please post it. :)

As far as I know, everything heard in Hook was written for Hook.

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This may be semi-off-topic, but just a question since I wasn't around here way back then.

Why is it the "Concorde" boot? Where did Concorde come in? Was that a DVD label or something? Just a little curious where the Concorde boot came from, originally.

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If you find sourced proof, please post it. :)

If he DID write material for that 80's musical, it was NOT re-purposed in 1990/91 when working on Hook. Everything heard in Hook was written for Hook.

There's this article which appeared in 1991 on the Boston Globe:

'HOOK,' 'JFK' ARE LATEST HITS WITH THE JOHN WILLIAMS TOUCH

The Boston Globe, January 19 1992, A5:1

Ten of the 12 top-grossing films in the history of the medium have scores by John Williams, and so do two of the most successful current films, "Hook" and "JFK."

"Hook" boasts a sweeping, romantic score that adds up to a whopping two hours of music -- an opera's worth. There is soaring, flying music for the journey to Neverland that recalls "E. T.," and a lot of charming pictorial detail. The giant flowers of Neverland recognize the Wall Street Peter Pan long before the Lost Boys do and they nuzzle up to him; as they do, the French horn nuzzles up, too. Throughout the film, romanticism is undercut and complicated by the twisting Prokofievian irony of the music that accompanies Captain Hook himself -- music that is at once swaggering and comic as it traces its silvery, sinister arc.

The score to "JFK" is shorter and sparer. Its most effective moments are nostalgic -- the tattoo of drums, the trumpet's lament for the slain president (played plangently by the Boston Pops' principal trumpeter, Timothy Morrison), and the sweeping, strength-of-the-people melody that is heard in the piano when Kevin Costner comforts Sissy Spacek after the assasination of Robert Kennedy and that wells up again in the strings during the final credits.

When Williams was in town to conduct the Christmas Pops, he sat down to lunch to talk about the two new films, and before long he dropped a bombshell, announcing his decision to retire from the Pops at the close of the 1993 season. One of the reasons, he said, was his heavy workload -- because of his commitments to the Pops and to these two film scores, he had not taken a day off for more than six months. "This pace is making me crazy," said Williams, who is approaching his 60th birthday. "At 60, you are not exactly creaking with age, but you have to be realistic about how much energy you have, and where you want to put it." So Williams is leaving the Pops and will also attempt to cut back on his film work, in order to spend more time with his family and write some long-deferred music for the concert hall.

"Hook" is actually Williams' second major score related to the Peter Pan story. A few years ago, he wrote the songs for a film musical of Sir James M. Barrie's play; Steven Spielberg was hoping to persuade Michael Jackson to take the title role, but when Jackson declined, the project died. "Hook," too, was originally planned as a musical, with songs, but those plans changed as the film evolved and Spielberg cast it mostly with nonsingers. "Robin Williams can sing," Williams said, "and Dustin Hoffman was game, but it wasn't really a singing cast. So now we have a two-hour score for full orchestra, pounding away."

Only one of Williams' songs, for Peter Pan's daughter, survives in a short sequence of the final film, though the themes from the discarded songs permeate the score. "One plan we have now is to make a CD storybook album of the film, using some of the songs. It would be nice if we could bring some of that music back to life."

Both "Hook" and "JFK" were composed in unusual ways. "I saw 'Hook' piecemeal," Williams recalls, "in assemblies of two or three reels at a time. What this meant was that I wrote 20 to 30 minutes' worth of music every three or four weeks, and that I wrote the beginning long before I ever saw the ending. At least I got the reels mostly in sequence."

Of course, Williams had copies of the shooting script all along, but he didn't find them all that helpful, because the script kept changing. "Each version came on a different color of paper, and it wasn't long before I had a whole rainbow of scripts!"

For "JFK," Williams worked in a way that was almost unique in his experience. He wrote six musical sequences, which were recorded in full before he had seen the entire film. "After the Pops season last summer, I went down to New Orleans where Oliver Stone, the director, was still shooting the movie, and I saw about an hour's worth of cut material and some of the dailies. I thought his handling of Lee Harvey Oswald was particularly strong, and I understood some of the atmosphere of the film -- the sordid elements, the underside of New Orleans."

After Williams had scored and recorded his sequences, Stone cut the film to the music, or to the parts of the music he decided to use. This is the way the classic collaboration of Eisenstein and Prokofiev worked on "Alexander Nevsky," but only once before has Williams had a similar opportunity, when Spielberg recut the end of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in order to synchonize with the logic of the music. "In 'JFK,' the music is cut up, in a documentary fashion; a musical sequence that may have lasted seven minutes on the recording lasts a minute or two in the film. On the CD, however, the score is presented in full, as pieces of music," Williams points out.

The musical sequences Williams wrote include a Kennedy Theme, a Conspirator's Piece, a Motorcade Sequence, Garrison's Obsession and an Arlington Sequence. Into the lyrical Kennedy theme Williams implanted an Irish lilt. Williams describes the motorcade music as "repetitious." "It spins out in a minimalistic way -- my hope was that Oliver Stone could be led into the pace of the sequence by the rhythms of the music. It is strongly kinetic music, music of interlocking rhythmic disciplines." For another sequence, Williams used Scottish drum patterns, drawing on his memory of the Black Watch at the Kennedy funeral. "And then I had big Japanese bass drums thundering along and exploding to accentuate the cuts." The meditative ''Arlington" sequence is scored mostly for strings, but there is also a long soliloquy for solo horn.

Like most Americans who lived through that terrible time, Williams can remember the moment he learned of the assassination of the president. "I woke up late in the morning when someone came into my room to tell me that President Kennedy had been shot. I switched on the television to follow the reporting. It was my first recollection as an adult of weeping; I was in my 30s, and I hadn't cried in decades. This is a very resonant subject for people of my generation, and that's why I welcomed the opportunity to participate in this film."

Williams interrupted his Christmas Pops schedule to fly to New York to meet with Ron Howard and see some footage for his next project, which will reunite him with the star of "Born on the Fourth of July," Tom Cruise. "It's tentatively called 'The Irish Story,' and it's a lyrical piece, an immigrant story about a young man who comes to Boston in the 19th century and winds up making the rush for land claims in Oklahoma. I'm looking forward to the chance to write some Boston music!"

Of course nothing indicated he repurposed previous compositions for the Hook score.

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Yea, that was my point. I perhaps wasn't clear earlier in my wording; I wasn't trying to say that there was no 80's Peter Pan musical, just that material from it wasn't repurposed for Hook

This may be semi-off-topic, but just a question since I wasn't around here way back then.

Why is it the "Concorde" boot? Where did Concorde come in? Was that a DVD label or something? Just a little curious where the Concorde boot came from, originally.

A bootleg showed up in 1997/1998 ish sold online (I bought mine from SAE!) and the label listed on it said "Concorde", which is just a fake company that doesn't really exist. I believe the Far And Away Vol 2 bootleg also had the Concorde name on it. Obviously, its completely unrelated to the Concord jazz label that released the Indy box set in 2008

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This may be semi-off-topic, but just a question since I wasn't around here way back then.

Why is it the "Concorde" boot? Where did Concorde come in? Was that a DVD label or something? Just a little curious where the Concorde boot came from, originally.

A bootleg showed up in 1997/1998 ish sold online (I bought mine from SAE!) and the label listed on it said "Concorde", which is just a fake company that doesn't really exist. I believe the Far And Away Vol 2 bootleg also had the Concorde name on it. Obviously, its completely unrelated to the Concord jazz label that released the Indy box set in 2008

Interesting! Now just to be even nosier and off-topic: any idea where the Concorde folks got their extra music not on the OST? Was it from a laser disc or something? (Not sure if "Hook" was ever released that way).

EDIT: Steef, you beat me to it!

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Nobody knows, but i always thought it was simply the pre-Concorde boot re-arranged and run through a de-noise filter... and they amped the de-noise filter up too much. I prefer the pre-Concorde boot, especially after de-noising it myself with Sound Forge

And the source of the Concorde boot was believed to be a FYC promo, right? On tape rather then CD.

I heard that rumor too (well about the pre-Concorde boot) but there really is no way to ever prove it. We'll probably never know

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Oh, the pre-Concorde boot would still be handy to have for a few reasons: first, we know that little bits and pieces may (and probably will) get snipped out of the LLL release; second, the boot has most (all?) of the cues isolated with clean opening and endings. I believe it's rather similar to a recording sessions leak, actually.

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I love hearing clean endings and openings to cues that are otherwise only available combined, especially Williams'

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So do I. Other than completely unreleased cues, it is my favorite thing about session leaks, FYC promos, etc.

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I love hearing clean endings and openings to cues that are otherwise only available combined, especially Williams'

I prefer to hear the pieces complete since as much as I like to hear the music as recorded I don't have the skills to edit it all back together. :P
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Oh lol - I didn't mean to say that I prefer to listen to them that way all the time! I just meant I loved hearing it as a curiosity

Obviously when listening to a score I prefer everything to be properly edited together, whether it be done by professionals or by myself

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Yes it is quite interesting to hear the points where Williams has decided to cut the longer musical sequence and divided the piece into those shorter sections. But as you said I don't think most would like to listen to them like that.

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Cutting up the cue into tracks though allows for the ultimate flexibility in that it's very easy to join them together. It would be much more difficult to cut them up and in the right places. I wonder if The Ultimate War was actually recorded as one long cue, or if they recorded it in sections and then strung it together. Hooray for engineers with tape and scissors. :)

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I can at least say about the pre-concorde boot that if it shows symptoms of coming from a cassette... it is all uniformly slightly under pitch (due to the irregularity of cassette playback). Also, the noise seems very much a symptom of a cassette playback.

As for the songs written for the film (who's themes are still incorporated) I didn't realize there were so many! I wish we had the words to more than just the few we have but still that's so interesting to read thanks for sharing :-)

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It is surprising that Michale Matessino was not part of the release but as Mr. Deutsch explains in Jason's interview the production was on East Coast and not on the West. But I am sure Matessino will be happy with this release, being one of the huge Hook-enthusiasts himself. :)

Btw do we know yet who wrote the liner notes for this?

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Btw do we know yet who wrote the liner notes for this?

According to Peter at FSM, they're written by Daniel Schweiger.

Interesting. I have not read any of his previous liner notes but have read his reviews and articles on Film Music Magazine. The pictures of the liner notes accompanying the Didier C. Deutsch interview look something away from his usual hyperbolic writing I am glad to say. :P

I hope he takes time to parse through the dense web of thematic ideas that criss cross across this score.

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Cutting up the cue into tracks though allows for the ultimate flexibility in that it's very easy to join them together. It would be much more difficult to cut them up and in the right places. I wonder if The Ultimate War was actually recorded as one long cue, or if they recorded it in sections and then strung it together. Hooray for engineers with tape and scissors. :)

The Ultimate War sequence is comprised of 8 short cues intended to segue together. The OST track contained the first 3 of them.

But note that Williams intended the final 3 reels of the film (12 cues) to be one long contiguous musical sequence... Starting with 13m1 Tink Grows Up through the 8 Ultimate War cues ending with the 3 Farewell Neverland cues

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As we said before, it's likely Williams splits a long music sequence into short cues mainly for recording and editing purposes. It's quicker to record, mix and edit 2-3 minutes cues instead of huge 10min-plus ones. It also makes easier to use them in the final dub, as in many cases sections are dialed out.

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Another longer sequence, Remembering Childhood, is comprised of 5 sections I think, where Williams follows the outline of the 15 minute sequence from the baseball match to the moment Peter and the Lost Boys are celebrating the triumphant return of Pan. This is another favourite of mine, running a true gamut of emotions from victory to defeat, from nostalgia to perhaps the most exhilarating depiction of the sensation and joy of flying Williams has ever composed. Another magnificently magical sequence in a score which is so full of them.

If there ever was a Williams score that is close to a ballet this is it. :)

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Yea, you are correct, 5 cues:

11m1 The Home Run

11m2/12m1 Follow That Shadow

12m2 I Remember

12m3 The Flying Sequence

12m4 You Are The Pan

"Follow That Shadow" was not included in "Remembering Childhood" on the OST, and You Are The Pan was moved to the following track, not overlapping with the end of The Flying Sequence as Intended.

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Yea, you are correct, 5 cues:

11m1 The Home Run

11m2/12m1 Follow That Shadow

12m2 I Remember

12m3 The Flying Sequence

12m4 You Are The Pan

"Follow That Shadow" was not included in "Remembering Childhood" on the OST, and You Are The Pan was moved to the following track, not overlapping with the end of The Flying Sequence as Intended.

Could you post the whole cue list?

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Well, here are the cues in the commonly traded sheet music leak

2M1 Wendy's Entrance

3M3 Hook Returns to Kensington

4M1 Hook Is Back

4M2 Forgotten How to Fly

4M4 The Arrival of Tink

4M5/5M1 I Don't Believe in Fairies

4M5/5M1 Revised Ending

6M5/7M1 The Mermaids

7M2 To Neverland

7M3 Lost Boys Appear

7M5 The Lost Boys Ballet

7M6/8M1 The Face of Pan

9M4 Cornucopia

9M4 Insert

9M5 Cutting The Coconut

11M1 The Home Run

12M2 I Remember

12M3 The Flying Sequence

12M4 You Are the Pan

13M1 Tink Grows Up

13M2 To War!!

13M2 Alternate Insert

13M2 Insert Bar 37

13M3 Crossed Swords

13M3 Insert

13M4/14M1 Form Rank

15M2 The End Of Hook

15M3 My Lost Boys

15M4 The Next Morning

15M5/16M1 Kensington Gardens

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But note that Williams intended the final 3 reels of the film (12 cues) to be one long contiguous musical sequence... Starting with 13m1 Tink Grows Up through the 8 Ultimate War cues ending with the 3 Farewell Neverland cues

But it isn't. It's like slapping together LEIA'S THEME, THE LAST BATTLE and THRONE ROOM and claiming it's one sequence.

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But note that Williams intended the final 3 reels of the film (12 cues) to be one long contiguous musical sequence... Starting with 13m1 Tink Grows Up through the 8 Ultimate War cues ending with the 3 Farewell Neverland cues

But it isn't. It's like slapping together LEIA'S THEME, THE LAST BATTLE and THRONE ROOM and claiming it's one sequence.

I think Jason is saying Williams' sheet music shows how all of this music is meant to segue seamlessly from one section to the next. These intentions are usually clearly marked in the sheet music.
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But note that Williams intended the final 3 reels of the film (12 cues) to be one long contiguous musical sequence... Starting with 13m1 Tink Grows Up through the 8 Ultimate War cues ending with the 3 Farewell Neverland cues

But it isn't. It's like slapping together LEIA'S THEME, THE LAST BATTLE and THRONE ROOM and claiming it's one sequence.

No, it's not like that at all, actually.

And in the final film, the 12 cues I mentioned DO play back-to-back-to-back-to-...-back, with the exception of the 20 seconds dialed out of "The End Of Hook"

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Jason. How do you think The Battle Of Hoth should be presented? as separate tracks, like the OST, Anthology and the Gerhardt re-recording, or as a continuous piece.

I think that Drawing The Battles Lines / Leia's Intructions / The Battle In The Snow should be presented as one continuous piece because they were clearly intended by the composer to be heard that way (it's a shame the 1997 set didn't get the segue right).

But Luke's First Crash and The Rebels Escape Again just come in as the previous one is fading out, doesnt matter to me how they are presented.

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Nobody knows, but i always thought it was simply the pre-Concorde boot re-arranged and run through a de-noise filter... and they amped the de-noise filter up too much. I prefer the pre-Concorde boot, especially after de-noising it myself with Sound Forge

And the source of the Concorde boot was believed to be a FYC promo, right? On tape rather then CD.

I heard that rumor too (well about the pre-Concorde boot) but there really is no way to ever prove it. We'll probably never know

While I can't back this up, due to the fact that I promised at the time not to reveal my sources, I've been told by someone I do trust, that he hold on his hands a FYC 2-disc set of Hook at the home of an Academy music branch member -- sadly he wasn't able to get a copy. When I mentioned this guy the bootlegs, and how they sounded, we came to the conclusion that someone back in the early 90's made a copy of that one into tape, and eventually, when CD burners become a regular thing in the late 90's, transferred it into CD-R, thous justification the crappy sound.

Again, take this as you will. I trust my source, and if he tells me he saw the 2-disc set, is because he did. If that was the actual source for the bootlegs, that is debatable, of course.

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This is coming a bit late, but great work on the interview, Jason!! (I've only read this today. :P)

Was it a phone interview? Or did you meet Didier in person?

Email

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And in the final film, the 12 cues I mentioned DO play back-to-back-to-back-to-...-back, with the exception of the 20 seconds dialed out of "The End Of Hook"

There's also that missing end segment of "Tink Grows Up," but for the sake of discussion, yes, that's true. Do we have any idea what that snippet was supposed to score?

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Sorry to be repetitive, but I really hope the last half-hour of the score isn't stitched together, indexed or otherwise. It works in the film, but 20 minutes of relentless action segueing into a highly emotional 10-minute finale would be an exhausting listen.

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