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Lincoln SCORE Discussion thread


Jay

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11 hours ago, Jay said:

Yea I don't get why people don't just order new release CDs through Amazon in 2016.  It's the cheapest price and they are in your mailbox on release day.  Never fails.

Well perhaps in your part of the world. In the past few years not a single order I have made from local or Scandinavian online retailer has arrived on the release day and even the release dates are invariable wrong and they can send the CDs with a couple days of delay. Suppliers seem to be very arbitrary in terms of how early or well they stock the stores, online or brick-and-mortar ones. But these are the first world problems with which we wrestle daily. ;)

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Would have been awesome if just praised himself and then dropped the mic:

 

"Look, I'll say it a different way, there is fantastic music permeating through this entire film, and the composer of that music IS ME, JOHN WILLIAMS"

 

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3rtyerfHZ1qir45xo1_500.gif

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On 09/08/2013 at 8:42 AM, indy4 said:

I was listening to Angela's Ashes, and I noticed a couple of similarities with Lincoln. 0:56-1:04 of "Lanes of Limerick" sounds very similar to "With Malice Towards None." 

 

Actually, I reminds more of the theme from Stepmom

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On 15.2.2017 at 6:49 PM, Disco Stu said:

I've watched that video many, many times over the past year.  Wonderful performance.

Yes Martin's sound cuts right through you. Beautiful stuff. His playing on the soundtrack is superb and the FYC promo has the piece called Trumpet Hymn which isn't a lengthy piece but I find it particularly emotional thanks to his soulful playing. It underscore's Lincoln's departure for the Ford's Theater in the film. Such poignancy.

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One thing led to another and I have been obsessing over politics a lot off late and over the process of democracy so I found myself drawn to this film and the album. And I re-visited the film and heard the album multiple times before and after.

 

And I have the feeling that this is the rare movie where the album does not represent the movie at all. The music is absolutely outstanding - I have now come to see it as a 5 star effort. BUT, it is great music, not a great score. The score is very sparse and rarely pops in the movie save for a few moments. The album as constructed showcases several melodies and themes many of them deeply developed and rendered over multiple minutes as solos or with full orchestral backing. There is no such music to be found in the film. 

 

The album is thus a concept album or an album inspired by the film. It is not the actual score. Which creates an interesting situation. How then are we to judge this as a score? As a score in the movie, I might give it say 3 stars. But the music itself is outstanding. But little of it is used in the film. So what to make of it? What am I listening to when I listen to the album? It is like an album length dissertation by Williams on Americana and an ode to American values and traditions. 

 

Is there any other Williams work with such a massive disconnect between the album and the score?

 

And I guess Williams must have known that the film would have little music. Most of the music sounds very concert-suite-y on the album. 

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I assume he treated the OST with so many theme suites because he knew just presenting the film score would make for a pretty unsatisfying listening experience.

 

Many of the film cues sound like edited or abridged excerpts of his suites anyway. Not sure if they were recorded that way? 

 

I guess he was just thrilled with the themes he wrote but didn't want to overscore the movie, so he compromised by writing expanded suites knowing they'd only be used on the OST. Same thing happened with both Munich and Schindler's List, now I think about it, to compensate for the relative lack of scoring in the films themselves. 

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21 hours ago, crumbs said:

I assume he treated the OST with so many theme suites because he knew just presenting the film score would make for a pretty unsatisfying listening experience.

 

Many of the film cues sound like edited or abridged excerpts of his suites anyway. Not sure if they were recorded that way? 

 

I guess he was just thrilled with the themes he wrote but didn't want to overscore the movie, so he compromised by writing expanded suites knowing they'd only be used on the OST. Same thing happened with both Munich and Schindler's List, now I think about it, to compensate for the relative lack of scoring in the films themselves. 

Yup Williams has always been quite conscious of how his scores are presented on disc and is one of the few who actually still creates suites and expanded material based on the score's themes to bolster the listening experience on disc. Which is pretty fantastic in my book. :)  

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17 minutes ago, crumbs said:

It's weird how lacking The Post was in that regard. No concert suites at all, correct? 

 

Even The Presses Roll is technically just a film cue. 

True. Perhaps the film didn't spark ol'Johnny's imagination like Lincoln or Memoirs of a Geisha that both inspired Williams further to create extensive concertized development of the material found in the scores.

 

Or schedule might have been another issue.

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True, it seems like the decision to cull RPO and focus only on TP was fairly last-minute.

 

He finished TLJ in July so he wasn't exactly busy for the last half of 2017.

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1 minute ago, crumbs said:

True, it seems like the decision to cull RPO and focus only on TP was fairly last-minute.

 

He finished TLJ in July so he wasn't exactly busy for the last half of 2017.

 

Sure but they were still filming when he finished TLJ!  He might not have seen a cut of the film until late September or early October, and then had four weeks or something to write the score!  I don't know the exact timeline but I don't think that's too far off.  Just no time to write album only material.

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This thread just makes me annoyed we don't have a new JW drama score this year.

 

C'mon Spielberg, you can make that shit in your sleep. Do we really have to wait until 2021 for your next movie?

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Wasn't he supposed to make a small drama with Jennifer Lawrence?  Surely it wouldn't have taken more than 9 months to prep, shoot, edit, score, and release that!

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Yeah I'm a bit perplexed by his inaction lately. I know Ready Player One came out less than 5 months ago but, really, all he was doing was approving visual effects shots for the last year.

 

West Side Story is a waste of his time and he can't find a male lead anyway. He can't find a young Mortara actor for that film and Oscar Isaac dropped out of playing the adult Mortara. The journalist movie has completely dropped off the side of the earth. I'll still be surprised if he doesn't fit in another small drama or two between now and Indy 5, but it seems like he's entering one of his infamous "hibernation" periods again. Despite releasing a film every year for the last 4 years, we've actually only had 2 Williams/Spielberg scores since Lincoln, which puts things in perspective.

 

All the more disappointing that Williams is either not asked or not interested in writing drama scores for directors other than Spielberg.

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Eh, a little break is fine.  2017 was super busy for Williams and we even got some bonus music for 2018 in the form of Solo.  

 

It is a shame that Spielberg's big upcoming project is one that by nature won't feature much (if any) new Williams music.  

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Except SWIX next December and Indy 5 in July 2021 are literally the only two films Williams is slated to score. Not as bad as the drought between Munich and War Horse, but still pretty sucky to only have 2 scores to look forward to in the next 3 years.

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1 minute ago, crumbs said:

Except SWIX next December and Indy 5 in July 2021 are literally the only two films Williams is slated to score. Not as bad as the drought between Munich and War Horse, but still pretty sucky to only have 2 scores to look forward to in the next 3 years.

Yeah, but I'm glad we're still getting scores from Williams.  The 2010's have been surprisingly bountiful for new Williams scores.  

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  • 1 year later...

Looks like that despite the relative brevity of the score in the film, Williams was writing quite a lot of different versions and variations on the same cues.

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That's not a small amount of music. Why is it then the music doesn't really stand out in any major way in the film at all.

 

If people just saw the film, they wouldn't exactly be rushing out to buy the album.

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So, just for clarification, what is currently unreleased and not on the OST? Two cues that come to mind that are unreleased are More Bad News and Robert At the Hospital. What else is currently unreleased? I'm always curious about such things.

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7 minutes ago, JohnnyD said:

So, just for clarification, what is currently unreleased and not on the OST? Two cues that come to mind that are unreleased are More Bad News and Robert At the Hospital. What else is currently unreleased? I'm always curious about such things.

 

Well, there’s no guarantee all of these were recorded, particularly earlier versions of revised cues, but here are the cues that don’t appear in any form on the OST or FYC:

 

1M4 Ver 2 “Battle Cry of Freedom”

1M5 “Mary’s First Scene”

1M10 “The People”

1M14 Ver 2 “Sleeping Tad”

2M12 “Talk With Tad”

2M14 “Tad Asleep”

2M14 Rev “Tad Asleep”

3M16 “Country Sweetener”

4M24 “More Bad News”

4M28 “Message from Grant and Decisions”

4M28 Alt “Lincoln and Seward”

4M29 “No Sixteen Year Olds Left”

5M38 “Robert At The Hospital”

6M42 Ver 2 “Welcome To This House”

6M44 “Delivering The Message”

6M46 “The American Process”

7M52 Ver 1 “Prayer”…At City Point

7M52 Ver 2 “Lincoln’s Battlefield Visit”

7M54 “To Ford’s Theatre”

7M54 Rev “To Ford’s Theatre”

7M54 Rev New Ending

7M58 “Now He Belongs To The Ages”

“Prayer” (Brass)

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I guess we could narrow it down by seeing what other cues were in the film but didn't make the FYC. From memory, not much (but I haven't watched the film in years).

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Safe to say you're bored in isolation when you assemble a complete score spreadsheet for Lincoln, but hopefully this saves someone else the trouble. Enjoy! Huge thanks to @BrotherSound for providing the complete cue list and breakdown of OST/FYC, which made this spreadsheet possible.

 

A few interesting discoveries:

  • Other than source music (which is plentiful) only 3 film cues remain in the film that are entirely unreleased (clips available in spreadsheet)
  • I suspect at least two of 7M54 “To Ford’s Theatre”, 7M54 Rev “To Ford’s Theatre” and 7M54 Rev New Ending were recorded, based on the fact this cue was replaced by tracked music in the final cut (7M52 Ver 6 Trumpet Version)
  • I suspect all versions of 7M52 were recorded because 3 turned up between the OST & FYC (and, like 7M54, the final film replaced Williams' intended versions with something else)
  • Several cue titles correspond with scenes that remain in the final cut, indicating lots of Williams underscore which went unused
  • Seems there were a couple of deleted scenes early in the film which Williams scored (2M12 “Talk With Tad," 2M14 “Tad Asleep”) unless these scenes were originally in reel 2 and later moved to reel 1 (and re-scored with 1M14 “Sleeping Tad” / 1M14 Ver 2 “Sleeping Tad”)
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1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

For me, "Lee's Departure" is the highlight of what's on the FYC and not available elsewhere.

 

I'm a bit confused by that breakdown for these cues, but I followed them in my spreadsheet. Isn't the last 1:30 of FYC T16 Lincoln and Grant - Lee's Departure the same as the last 1:30 of OST T15 Appomattox, April 9, 1865 though?

 

@BrotherSound can you please clarify if your breakdown is accurate for those two tracks? Am I missing some subtle orchestration differences?

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The FYC track "Lincoln And Grant/Lee's Departure" contains

  • 0:00-0:26 = 7M52A Lincoln and Grant (the end of the cue only, the beginning of the cue was certainly recorded but is unavailable anywhere)
  • 0:26-end = 7M53 Lee's Departure (complete)

The OST track "Appomattox - April 9, 1865" contains

  • 0:00-1:09 = 7M52Av2 Lincoln and Grant (the beginning of the cue only, the ending was certainly recorded but is unavailable anywhere)
  • 1:09-end = 7M53 Lee's Departure (complete)

So when @Disco Stu says Lee's Departure is a highlight of the FYC, I'm not sure what he means because that cue was always on the OST.  Unless he's referring to the opening 26 seconds, The "Lincoln and Grant" part, which isn't.

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11 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Isn't the last 1:30 of FYC T16 Lincoln and Grant - Lee's Departure the same as the last 1:30 of OST T15 Appomattox, April 9, 1865 though?

 

@BrotherSound can you please clarify if your breakdown is accurate for those two tracks?


You’re right: from the choral entrance to the end of OST 15 is 7M53, same as the FYC track. I’ve updated my original post.

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Yea they came so close to just including the entire score as heard in the film on the FYC album.  Why they elected to drop those 3 spots of music is beyond me, and unfortunate

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Reminds me of the Munich OST. So, so close but not quite there (and The Post for that matter, even between its two versions).

 

All the more frustrating that they're post-2005 fee changes, making expansions highly unlikely.

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I never really understood if Lincoln being recorded in Chicago is the same expensive price as Hollywood recorded scores or not

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