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The fan's playlist: Rediscover the repertoire of JW


Bespin

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I just re-discovered this wonderful track on the Boston Pops album "On stage" directed dy JW.
I really love it!

 


Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is a ballet with music by Richard Rodgers and choreography by George Balanchine. It occurs near the end of Rodgers and Hart's 1936 Broadway musical comedy On Your Toes. Slaughter is the story of a hoofer who falls in love with a dance hall girl who is then shot and killed by her jealous boyfriend. The hoofer then shoots the boyfriend.

Source: Wikipedia

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Now this one, a very moving highlight from Seven Years in Tibet showing the artistry of John Williams.

Seven Years in Tibet is a 1997 British-American biographical war drama film based on the 1952 book of the same name written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer on his experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during World War II, the interim period, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army's invasion of Tibet in 1950. Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Brad Pitt and David Thewlis, the score was composed by John Williams and features cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Source: Wikipedia.

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As it poped up in a recent thread, this piece is a true gem and qualified for this thread.


"I received a beautifully bound collection of photographs of trees as a gift from a friend. The book is entitled Heartwood and contains a series of exquisite photographs of a southern species of live oak (Quercus Virginiana) taken by Willliam Guion. Each tree pictured in the book conveyed a dignity and enduring strength that suggested a wisdom only attained after reaching great age," Williams writes in the notes of the "Yo-Yo Ma plays the music of John Williams" album.
oak_alley.jpg
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Two more very "classical" cues from Jaws featuring an intense fugue that is a masterful addition to the score.

Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. A giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter.

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The Return (from Jane Eyre) taken from the Boston Pops album Pops Britannia.

Jane Eyre is a 1970 television film directed by Delbert Mann starring George C. Scott and Susannah York. It is based on the 1847 novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. The film had its theatrical debut in the United Kingdom in 1970 and was released on television in the United States in 1971.

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Three Preludes from the great LSO album Gershwin Fantasy. The american violonist Joshua Bell is accompanied by John Williams on the piano.

 

Three Preludes are short piano pieces by George Gershwin, which were first performed by the composer at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York in 1926. Each prelude is a well-known example of early-20th-century American classical music, as influenced by jazz.

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Lincoln - The American Process

Lincoln is a 2012 American epic historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln. The screenplay by Tony Kushner was based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and covers the final four months of Lincoln's life, focusing on the President's efforts in January 1865 to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed by the United States House of Representatives.

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The Adventures of Robin Hood: Robin Hood and His Merry Men (E. W. Korngold) from the LSO album Hollywood Sound.
 

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (May 29, 1897 – November 29, 1957) was an Austro-Hungarian composer who adopted
US nationality. While his late Romantic compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died,
his music has more recently undergone a re-evaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest.
Along with such composers as Max Steiner and Alfred Newman, he is considered one of the founders of film music.
Korngold's 1938 Academy Award for his score to The Adventures of Robin Hood marked the first time an
Oscar was awarded to the composer rather than the head of the studio music department (as had occurred, for example,
with Korngold's award-winning score to Anthony Adverse in 1936).

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Angela's Ashes: The Lanes of Limerick by Yolanda Kondonassis


Angela's Ashes is a 1999 Irish-American drama film based on the memoir of the same name by Frank McCourt. It tells the story of Frank McCourt and his childhood after his family are forced to move from United States back to Ireland because of financial difficulties and family problems caused by his father's alcoholism. The film chronicles young McCourt's life in Limerick, Ireland, during his childhood in the 1930s and 1940s, the difficulties that arose, and Frank's way of earning enough money to return to the land of his dreams: America.
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The Adventures of Robin Hood: Robin Hood and His Merry Men (E. W. Korngold) from the LSO album Hollywood Sound.

The Adventures of Robin Hood: Robin Hood And His Merry Men by Williams, John on Grooveshark

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (May 29, 1897 November 29, 1957) was an Austro-Hungarian composer who adopted

US nationality. While his late Romantic compositional style was considered well out of vogue at the time he died,

his music has more recently undergone a re-evaluation and a gradual reawakening of interest.

Along with such composers as Max Steiner and Alfred Newman, he is considered one of the founders of film music.

Korngold's 1938 Academy Award for his score to The Adventures of Robin Hood marked the first time an

Oscar was awarded to the composer rather than the head of the studio music department (as had occurred, for example,

with Korngold's award-winning score to Anthony Adverse in 1936).

Great album,

Bespin, you're in the Montreal area? I lived there for 5 years. Studied there then the played assistant principal trumpet with MSO for one year. Now playing principal in Halifax.

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@ricsim88 Yes I work there everyday! Cool, I played clarinet in school...well that was in another life, but trumpet was my first choice! MSO, great ensemble, have you played for Nagano or Lacombe?

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@ricsim88 Yes I work there everyday! Cool, I played clarinet in school...well that was in another life, but trumpet was my first choice! MSO, great ensemble, have you played for Nagano or Lacombe?

I played in MSO before Nagano was there. Mostly worked with Dutoit. I did work with Jacques Lacombe, both when studying and also with MSO.

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Midway March from the Boston Pops album I Love A Parade.

Midway is a 1976 Technicolor war film directed by Jack Smight and produced by Walter Mirisch from a screenplay by Donald S. Sanford. The film chronicles the Battle of Midway, a turning point in World War II in the Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been undefeated until that time and out-numbered the American naval forces by four to one.

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Main Title from Star Wars played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (Summer Night Concert - Schoenbrunn 2010).

 

The music of Star Wars was written by composer John Williams and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra for all six feature films, from 1977 to 2005. This encompasses both the original trilogy, the first three films, and the prequel trilogy, the last three films. The scores utilize an eclectic variety of musical styles, many culled from the Late Romantic idiom of Richard Strauss and his contemporaries that itself was incorporated into the Golden Age Hollywood scores of Erich Korngold and Max Steiner.

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The Olympic Spirit from Summon The Heroes.


For NBC's coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, John Williams was commissioned to write a new piece of Olympics music, a follow-up to his 1984 Olympic Fanfare and Theme. The score of the work calls for three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano and strings.

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Going To School from the 2006 EP Memoirs of a Geisha - Live sessions.


 

Yo-Yo Ma, Cello; John Williams, Piano

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The Last Emperor: Theme on the LSO album The Hollywood Sound.


[No clip, Sorry]

Ryuichi Sakamoto is the international face of Japan's contemporary music scene. An academically trained musician, he has drawn on, and contributed to, a wide range of contemporary musical genres with a succession of successful projects since the 1970s. His band, Yellow Magic Orchestra, made it to the British Top 20 with "Computer Game" in 1980.YMO came to an end in 1984, and Sakamoto launched his solo career, one characterized by extensive collaboration with a wide range of international musicians. Among them wereDavid Sylvian (Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music (1982), Forbidden Colors (1983), Brilliant Trees (1984), Secrets of the Beehive (1987), World Citizen (2004), Snow Borne Sorrow (2005), David Byrne (soundtrack of The Last Emperor, 1987), Thomas Dolby (Field Work, 1985, Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia, 1984 - along with Akiko Yano ).Nam June Paik (1932-2006) (All Star Video, 1984), Iggy Pop, Bootsy Collins, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Robertson, Tony Williams, Youssou N'Dour, and others.

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Theme from Jurassic Park from the Boston Pops album Williams on Williams (The Classic Spielberg Scores).

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Alexander Borodin - Polovtsian Dances, played by the Boston Pops Orchestra on the album Pops a La Russe.

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin (12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887) was a Russian Romantic composer, doctor and chemist. He failed to complete much of Prince Igor but did finish its brilliant dances. The Polovtsian Dances offer an exhilarating climax to the opera’s second act, as Prince Igor and his son Vladimir are taken prisoner by Polovtsian leader Khan Konchak, who entertains them lavishly and calls on his slaves to perform the thrilling dances.

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I haven't listened to the HP1 OST in years. That track does contain perhaps my favorite part of the entire score AKA Arrival at Hogwarts. However, it was a huge disappointment for me when I listened to the OST after seeing the movie and the best part of Platform Nine and Three Quarters (when Harry goes through the portal and sees the train) was excised. This sort of thing plagued that OST, as is common with most JW OSTs for his best modern scores. I actually rented that one on VHS and recorded it to cassette with my Talkboy from Home Alone 2. Thank God for piracy.

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Memoirs of a Geisha (from the album Bejeweled: Encore Gems for flute and harp)

Julie Scolnik, flute; Franziska Huhn, harp

Gorgeous arrangement. Thanks for the heads-up! I have to check the rest of that album now. :)

And if we are precise it is The Chairman's Waltz. ;)

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Michael Torke - Javelin (Summon The Heroes)

Javelin is a composition for orchestra by American composer Michael Torke. The work was commissioned by the Atlanta Committee for the Olympics, which was about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It was premiered in the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Joel Levy, on September 8, 1994. It was also performed in the opening ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics, which took place in Atlanta.

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John Williams - Hymn to the Fallen (from Saving Private Ryan)


Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic drama war film set during the Invasion of Normandy in World War II and directed by Steven Spielberg. The Invasion of Normandy was the invasion by and establishment of Western Allied forces in Normandy, during Operation Overlord in 1944 during World War II; the largest amphibious invasion to ever take place.

D-Day, the day of the initial assaults, was Tuesday 6 June 1944. Allied land forces that saw combat in Normandy on that day came from Canada, the Free French forces, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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Tobias Picker - Old and Lost Rivers (from The LSO album The Five Sacred Trees)


Tobias Picker is one of the most important living American composers. He was a prodigy who began writing music at the age of eight and studied at the Manhattan School of Music as a child. He continued his studies at The Juilliard School and Princeton University where he worked with Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, and Charles Wuorinen.

“Driving east from Houston along Interstate 10, you will come to a high bridge which crosses many winding bayous. These bayous were left behind by the great wanderings over time of the Trinity River across the land. When it rains the bayous fill with water and begin to flow. At other times -- when it is dry -- they evaporate and turn green in the sun. The two main bayous are called Old River and Lost River. Where they converge, a sign on the side of the highway reads: Old and Lost Rivers. " - Tobias Picker
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Star Wars: Throne Room and Finale (from the 1990 album John Williams conducts John Williams – The Star Wars Trilogy)


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John Williams - The Olympic Spirit (from the Boston Pops O album Summon the Heroes)

Commissioned by NBC for the Seoul Olympic games broadcast in 1988.

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Naomi Shemer - Yeroushalaim Chel Zahav (Jerusalem Of Gold) (from Schindler's List OST, conducted by Hana Tzur, feat. Ramat Gan Chamber Choir)

"Jerusalem of Gold" (Yerushalayim Shel Zahav) is an extremely popular Israeli song written by Naomi Shemer in 1967. It is also the unofficial national anthem of Israel, often contrasted with the secular Hatikva. A version was part of the soundtrack of Schindler's List, orchestrated by the film composer John Williams. The song features prominently at the end of the film, with the exception of the Israeli release, when the remaining Jews leave the camp and walk over the hill in the direction of a nearby town.

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As a side note the version of the song found on the OST was not used in the film but they used another version from another film, called Pour Sacha.

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M. Steiner - Gone With The Wind: Tara Theme (from the Boston Pops album Aisle Seat – Great Fim Music)

 


Maximilian Raoul "Max" Steiner (1888–1971) was an Austrian-born American composer of music for theatre and films. He was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, either composing, arranging or conducting, when he was fifteen.Steiner composed over 300 film scores with RKO and Warner Brothers, and was nominated for 24 Academy Awards, winning three: The Informer (1935), Now, Voyager (1942), and Since You Went Away (1944). Besides his Oscar-winning scores, some of Steiner's popular works include King Kong (1933), Little Women (1933), Jezebel (1938), Casablanca (1942), and the film score for which he is possibly best known, Gone with the Wind (1939).
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Star Wars IV: A new hope - Princess Leia's Theme (from Star Wars [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack])

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Sir William Walton - Orb and Sceptre (from the Boston Pops album Pops Britannia)


Orb and Sceptre is a march for orchestra written by Sir William Walton for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953.

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Fifty miles of desert - The Eiger Sanction

They don't make 'em like this anymore..

I must say that I prefer this kind of "percussive" cues to the "real percussion" cues on Lost World.

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