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Angela's Ashes (John Williams)


Thor

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Christ Almighty! No previous thread on this either?

 

This is one of my alltime favourite Williams scores (and as such one of my alltime favourite soundtracks in general). "Angela's Prayer" leaves me floored every time I hear it -- the quintessential example of what I call JW's "religious sound" and my primary reason for having him as my favourite composer -- but there are so many other great aspects to it too. Sometimes playful and childlike (harps or pizzicato strings), but mostly extremely spiritual, with gorgeous pastoral stretches in the style of Vaughan Williams.

 

The film is so-so; it tries a little too hard. Not one of Parker's best films. But not bad either.

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Which edition JWfaners prefers, the one with narration, or the one without narration?
 

p_sk89009.jpg

 

Angela's Ashes [Music From The Motion Picture] (1999, Sony Music Soundtrax, SK 89009; Erdody, Turovsky, Ellis, Kerber, Williams)

Theme From Angela's Ashes; My Story; Angela's Prayer; My Dad's Stories; Lord, Why Do You Want The Wee Children?; Plenty Of Fish And Chips In Heaven; The Dipsey Doodle; The Lanes Of Limerick; Looking For Work; Pennies From Heaven; My Mother Begging; If I Were In America; Delivering Telegrams; I Think Of Theresa; Angels Never Cough; Watching The Eclipse; Back To America; Angela's Ashes Reprise.

 

p_4667612.jpg

 

(Released in Europe in 1999 without the narration, Decca, 466 761-2)

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I live in Europe, so I never heard the one with the narration. But I do remember there being a lot of fuss about it at the time. Dialogue on soundtracks sucks.

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Actually I bought the version without narration at first, thinking the other version with narration was really odd. And then I bought the version with narration and it turned out to be my favorite version. It's really moving.

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5 minutes ago, Richard said:

(...) the one without narration was released, in 2000.

 

It was released in 1999 too.

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1 hour ago, Richard said:

Maybe in the USA, Bes, but in the UK, we didn't get the "no narration" OST until the film was released, in January (or was it February?) 2000.

 

It may happen for releases that occurs at the begining of the year.  On my Decca CD, it's printed 1999. It's 1999 everywhere, on discogs, on http://www.soundtrackcollector.com, everywhere. :)

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49 minutes ago, nightscape94 said:

It's nearly impossible not to like or love this score.  Full of classic Williams lush string writing.

 

 

Indeed. Which is why it is flabbergasting to me why it isn't talked about more often, or doesn't feature on more top 10 lists of Williams' scores. I sometimes feel that if it ain't STAR WARS or HARRY POTTER or INDIANA JONES or whatever (or STAR TREK, LOTR or other blockbusters and franchises), a lot of regulars here find it uninteresting.

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My favourite Williams score, it was like Anakin's Theme/Anakin is Free stretched into an entire for me.

 

I love how consistent it is, no "jump scares" like Memoirs or "tone" swings like his action work

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I love The Lanes of Limerick and Back to America. So many gems in this score. And being a guitar player, I recall the main theme received a rendition on solo guitar in the film. Really wish that had been included on the soundtrack, alas. 

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For those who don't know this superb recording narrated by the author of the novel, Frank McCourt himself... you can buy it on the bso.org website.

 

With Frank McCourt

 

p_tanglewood75.jpg

 

Music from Angela's Ashes (2000) (2012, BSO Classics, Digital Release; McCourt, Boston Pops O/Williams)

Music composed and conducted by John Williams; Narrated by Frank McCourt.

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Yes this is perhaps my favourite John Williams score. Fantastic through and through and tugs at my soul strings with its sadness, beauty and hope.

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13 hours ago, Bespin said:

Which edition JWfaners prefers, the one with narration, or the one without narration?
 

p_sk89009.jpg

 

Angela's Ashes [Music From The Motion Picture] (1999, Sony Music Soundtrax, SK 89009; Erdody, Turovsky, Ellis, Kerber, Williams)

Theme From Angela's Ashes; My Story; Angela's Prayer; My Dad's Stories; Lord, Why Do You Want The Wee Children?; Plenty Of Fish And Chips In Heaven; The Dipsey Doodle; The Lanes Of Limerick; Looking For Work; Pennies From Heaven; My Mother Begging; If I Were In America; Delivering Telegrams; I Think Of Theresa; Angels Never Cough; Watching The Eclipse; Back To America; Angela's Ashes Reprise.

 

p_4667612.jpg

 

(Released in Europe in 1999 without the narration, Decca, 466 761-2)

There is no "War of the Worlds" release without narration, is there? I hate this fu...ing narration, but especially in "Angela's Ashes", because there are numberous titles with. I bought the album because of the music (which is great by the way and reminds me somehow of a mixture of "Munich" and "Schindler's List")! Luckily in this case there is a version without.

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It's a beautiful score. As for the narration, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal. Both versions are available anyway and it's not like the dialogue is intrusive. It's the way Williams intended it to be heard on the OST.

 

War of the Worlds is kind of an exception because the Morgan Freeman dialogue is awful and has nothing to do with the overall presentation of the OST. The guy's talking about aliens, which is followed by an hour of layers upon layers of atonality and dissonance. It lacks the charm of the sound effects in Earthquake or the beauty and sophistication of Angela's Ashes, which tells the story along with the music. It's kind of wonderful.

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I used to be dead-set against dialogue/narration in music, but I've really come around.  I like this album a lot.

 

Never heard the un-narrated album, but that's fine.  As long as narration is clear and not hissy, it works for me as part of the music.  See also:  Williams' Heidi.

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I love the suite of The Reivers with Burgess Meredith narrating, but that's a specific concert arrangement meant to tell a story through words and music, which is a little different I think.

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Williams picked this film because he loved Frank McCourt's book, so it's not that strange he might have thought to put music behind words from the novel. In fact, he even prepared a beautiful concert suite for narrator and orchestra:

 

 

 

Of course I'm glad he released an album without narration as well :) 

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  • 5 months later...
Just now, Thor said:

Not all of those were general threads about film and score (several had very specific sub questions), but yeah -- apparently there were a few!

 

How does this not count?

 

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/17942-rate-angelas-ashes/

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That counts. Some of the others did not.

 

In either case, it seems like I picked the "wrong" search function when I did this; the one that doesn't get any hits -- i.e. by searching directly in the field in the upper, right corner.

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To find that, all I did was type "ashes" into that same search box you talked about, changing the dropdown from "This Topic" to "Topics".  Then, when the results came in, I clicked "ashes in content titles only".  That's it!

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  • 3 years later...
8 minutes ago, Ludwig said:

So what does it mean that Part 1 of some titles are missing here?


Each part is a cue or insert used for an OST track. So ‘Watching the Eclipse’, for example, is apparently comprised of three cues. However, since ‘Part 2’ is not on this list, that cue must not have been used anywhere in the film.

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On 3/25/2017 at 1:37 PM, Bespin said:

For those who don't know this superb recording narrated by the author of the novel, Frank McCourt himself... you can buy it on the bso.org website.

 

With Frank McCourt

 

http://www.goplanete.com/johnwilliams/images/disco/p_tanglewood75.jpg

 

Music from Angela's Ashes (2000) (2012, BSO Classics, Digital Release; McCourt, Boston Pops O/Williams)

Music composed and conducted by John Williams; Narrated by Frank McCourt.


Link?

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46 minutes ago, Bespin said:

Do I look like Google?


Why share that information and not provide a link? I looked all over BSO.org and could not find it. Hence, why I asked for a link.

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I remember noticing in the film a short solo guitar rendition of the main theme. I think towards the end of the film, but wow, that was over 20 years ago.

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11 hours ago, thx99 said:

@JohnnyD, it’s no longer available for purchase but here is the site via archive.org:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120904052041/https://www.bso.org/Merchandise/Detail/44877

 

The audio sample still works!!


Dang it! Is there someone who can PM me? I really wanted to get this. Shoot!

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  • 1 year later...

I don't know where to post that.

 

Maybe this question has already been answered, but has the content of the Suite from "Angela's Ashes" narrated by Frank McCourt been detailed?

 

For example, what soundtrack cues could be equivalent to it?

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10 hours ago, Bespin said:

I don't know where to post that.

 

Maybe this question has already been answered, but has the content of the Suite from "Angela's Ashes" narrated by Frank McCourt been detailed?

 

For example, what soundtrack cues could be equivalent to it?

 

Unless I've since reneamed the pieces and did some editing, this is what's on my phone. A few pieces of mostly narration are missing as I didn't need them on my phone. What I have is

1. Angela's Ashes Theme

3. My Dad's Stories

5. The Lanes Of Limerick

7. Angela's Prayers

9. Instrumental - I haven't explored this, it's 1:32 long. It starts with harp and then cello enters.

11. Delivering Telegrams

12. Back to America 

 

I haven't explored the differences other than the obvious one that the cello is featured, especially in Angela's Prayers. 

Here's the orignal thread. Not much info though.

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  • 1 month later...
On 24/05/2021 at 6:26 PM, BrotherSound said:

Did a bit of digging and found a few of the original cue titles in the GEMA Repertoire.

Stumbled upon a few you missed:

941850 Not a Drop of Milk

941853 A Coffin For the Baby

941854 Baby Oliver's Funeral

941859 God is Good, You Know

941860 Rainy River and Water Pails

941866 Dad is Not on the Train

941867 Mom Takes the Food Voucher

941868 Dad Leaves on Christmas Day

941870 Frankie Leaves Home

941871 Lying with Theresa

941872 I Miss Malachy

941878 Frankie's Vision

 

I've not seen the film so I don't know what to search to try find the remaining gaps, unfortunately.

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