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'A Celebration of John Williams in Concert' - Royal Albert Hall, October 26, 2018 (CONDUCTED BY DIRK BROSSÉ)

Mari

By Mari
in JOHN WILLIAMS

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Thor
Thor

I hope it's OK if I post Mike Mattessino's recent Facebook post here, since there were no pertinent details about the illness other than to comfort us all a little bit -- which we need right now:

tmarps
tmarps

Unlike many of you on this forum, it will be my first time listening to the music of John Williams performed live in concert. As I begin my 6 hour journey to London, I feel slightly melancholic due to

crocodile
crocodile

There's still a lot to look forward to people. I'm more concerned about his health, to be honest.    Karol

ocelot

ocelot 508

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, St0rMl0rD said:

If anyone has an extra printed program they'd wanna sell, I'm your man :)

Where do you live?

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Quintus

Quintus 5,399

Posted
Posted
On 10/27/2018 at 11:01 AM, Stefancos said:

I'm still convinced Williams wasn't happy with the old version. As far as I know he's never conducted it himself. 

 

 

 

Well, it was an awkward and just not very good concert arrangement by his standards.

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Bespin

Bespin 8,480

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5 minutes ago, Ricard said:

 

I see your point!

 

New LPs are made using... digital technology... f***... what's the point???

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Nick Parker

Nick Parker 3,040

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, St0rMl0rD said:

Is that a thing? ;)

 

He's strangely persnickety on this. I'm thinking his rationale is he doesn't want "parasites" to just join the board to ask for stuff, but as far as I'm concerned, you sat in with us on the stream, you're a part of us.

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Bespin

Bespin 8,480

Posted
Posted
5 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Richard didn't have an avatar for years!

 

Who is Richard?

 

The one with the Rush avatar?

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Bespin

Bespin 8,480

Posted
Posted

Did he ask for a bootleg while he was a "stranger"?

 

New users... they join here... and first 10 post, they ask for a bootleg.

 

Go away... mercy!

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King Mark

King Mark 3,631

Posted
Posted

Listening to the stream again

 

is it possible they turned down the volume in the ESB part of Han Solo and the Princess at the end.. seems not as loud as it should be there. And the solo parts at the end seem louder than they should be.  Is there a guy mixing stuff live?

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Incanus

Incanus 5,714

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, hornist said:

Oh, I forgot to mention that I just loved Dracula, one of the highlights of this wonderful concert!! What is happening to me?? 😱

It is just the power of John Williams descending upon you brother. Soon you shall see the light!

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Martinland

Martinland 358

Posted
Posted

Dear music lovers!

 

Could someone please sent me a private message with a link to a proper (processed?) recording of this wonderful event? I beg you...

 

Thank you!

 

...and here's why: Me and the woman in my life already were there to experience Maestro Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in 1996. There even was an opportunity to briefly talk to him - it all seems like a dream now.

 

Cut to the present day and I stumble - by chance! I submitted a review of the concert mentioned above to this site, if I'm not mistaken, but have been visiting very rarely in the last couple of years - upon the announcement of Maestro Williams conducting the Vienna Philharmonic - in the Goldener Saal of Musikverein no less - right here on this site. I immediately wished for our daughter to have this once-in-a-lifetime experience and managed to get us into row 7 of the golden hall. Then it sold out right after that. Amazing - that happened after my birthday in June.

 

Cut to the day before yesterday:

 

I was completely devastated (after months of looking forward to this) upon realising the cancellation (no conductor to the rescue here in Austria, unfortunately!) of the concert. Now I'm much better because I read about the hopefully rather harmless illness that befell Maestro Williams upon arrival in London and since I promised our daughter that she could at least listen to this excellent performance at the Royal Albert Hall, where I experienced Elmer Bernstein celebrating his 80th birthday and even met John Landis in front of the still deserted Hall's side entrance in the afternoon.

 

It has not been a good month, at least in my musical universe: At the beginning of this month one of the computer game chip music (yes, another of my passions respectively fields of interest) pioneers, maybe even the first one employed for real, at least here in Europe, Ben Daglish, died merely 10 (!) days before a concert appearance at age 52 (!) and now this...

 

...SO PLEASE, PLEASE DO GET WELL, MAESTRO WILLIAMS!

 

Ciao,

ML

 

READY.

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Omen II

Omen II 1,235

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Posted

I've been listening back to the Classic FM broadcast and was amused to hear presenter Catherine Bott praising celeste player Philip Moore for his performance of Hedwig's theme.  She must not have been watching the orchestra, otherwise she would have seen that it was the pianist Catherine Edwards who was playing the celeste during that piece.

 

Does anyone know who the bass clarinet player was?  I could not see him properly (the harp was in the way) but it was definitely not Katy Ayling as listed in the programme.  I wondered if it might have been one of the clarinet players from the LPO or the Philharmonia.

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Martinland

Martinland 358

Posted
Posted
42 minutes ago, St0rMl0rD said:

He's already much better, travelling back to LA tomorrow or so.

Very, very good for him and we should be glad!

On the other hand, we will start leaving for

Vienna when he has been home

getting well for days. Boy,

this will be hard to

forget...

 

...that's life I guess.

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St0rMl0rD

St0rMl0rD 155

Posted
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40 minutes ago, Martinland said:

Very, very good for him and we should be glad!

On the other hand, we will start leaving for

Vienna when he has been home

getting well for days. Boy,

this will be hard to

forget...

 

...that's life I guess.

Same here, flying to Vienna for a day on Saturday morning...I'll go see the Musikverein on Saturday, will also pick up my ticket of the concert-that-was-not-meant-to-be :( Will post a pic here.

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bollemanneke

bollemanneke 3,342

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, King Mark said:

Listening to the stream again

 

is it possible they turned down the volume in the ESB part of Han Solo and the Princess at the end.. seems not as loud as it should be there. And the solo parts at the end seem louder than they should be.  Is there a guy mixing stuff live?

You basically summarised the problem with the entire Classic FM broadcast. I just don't understand why they couldn't turn that stupid fuction off for this event.

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crocodile

crocodile 8,006

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Posted
6 hours ago, hornist said:

Oh, I forgot to mention that I just loved Dracula, one of the highlights of this wonderful concert!! What is happening to me?? 😱

I think someone has hacked Pasi's account.

 

Moderator! Moderator!

 

Karol

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Jay

Jay 37,352

Posted
Posted

I am bummed that I was only able to meet Pasi very, very briefly. There was a misplaced backpack I had to attend to immediately after we shook hands, and then I never saw him again!

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Marian Schedenig

Marian Schedenig 8,192

Posted
Posted
On 10/26/2018 at 8:37 PM, leeallen01 said:

Confirmed that JW is listening in hospital, followed by an enormous round of applause makes me want to bloody cry!

 

Guess what I did in the RAH!

On 10/26/2018 at 8:43 PM, leeallen01 said:

Makes me pumped for next month when I'll be in the same building with the same orchestra for the A New Hope concert!

 

Oh yes!

On 10/26/2018 at 8:57 PM, Nick Parker said:

Dirk discussing the precursor to Star Wars Live to Projection shows.

 

What you didn't see on the audio stream: When Brosse said that Williams asked, "Are you free on Friday?", and he replied "Yes", he was vehemently shaking his head.

On 10/27/2018 at 9:27 AM, hagai2003 said:

738F0745-134F-4EC1-BDDA-DD20962970E4.jpeg

 

I'd been waiting for that gesture (holding up the score), he did the same when he filled in for Goldsmith in 2004.

9 hours ago, King Mark said:

In the case of Han and the Princess I think Tanglewood is the best one and probably closest to his intention. I can't imagine he'd  stretch it out 7 minutes like Brosse for an album recording

 

But an album recording and a live performance are two very different things, and conductors often treat them very differently as well.

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Jay

Jay 37,352

Posted
Posted

I honestly didn't even know that was him at the end of the dinner table the whole time.

 

I guess I made a mistake sitting on the inside of the table. If I was on the outside, I could have gotten up and talked to everyone at the outer tables. But I was trapped on the inside. Another lesson learned.

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Nick1Ø66

Nick1Ø66 4,714

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Martinland said:

Dear music lovers!

 

Could someone please sent me a private message with a link to a proper (processed?) recording of this wonderful event? I beg you...

 

Thank you!

 

...and here's why: Me and the woman in my life already were there to experience Maestro Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in 1996. There even was an opportunity to briefly talk to him - it all seems like a dream now.

 

Cut to the present day and I stumble - by chance! I submitted a review of the concert mentioned above to this site, if I'm not mistaken, but have been visiting very rarely in the last couple of years - upon the announcement of Maestro Williams conducting the Vienna Philharmonic - in the Goldener Saal of Musikverein no less - right here on this site. I immediately wished for our daughter to have this once-in-a-lifetime experience and managed to get us into row 7 of the golden hall. Then it sold out right after that. Amazing - that happened after my birthday in June.

 

Cut to the day before yesterday:

 

I was completely devasted (after months of looking forward to this) upon realising the cancellation (no conductor to the rescue here in Austria, unfortunately!) of the concert. Now I'm much better because I read about the hopefully rather harmless illness that befell Maestro Williams upon arrival in London and since I promised our daughter that she could at least listen to this excellent performance at the Royal Albert Hall, where I experienced Elmer Bernstein celebrating his 80th birthday and even met John Landis in front of the still deserted Hall's side entrance in the afternoon.

 

It has not been a good month, at least in my musical universe: At the beginning of this month one of the computer game chip music (yes, another of my passions respectively fields of interest) pioneers, maybe even the first one employed for real, at least here in Europe, Ben Daglish, died merely 10 (!) days before a concert appearance at age 52 (!) and now this...

 

...SO PLEASE, PLEASE DO GET WELL, MAESTRO WILLIAMS!

 

Ciao,

ML

 

READY.

 

Why does this remind me Nigerian spam?

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Marian Schedenig

Marian Schedenig 8,192

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Anyway, a few thoughts of my own.

 

It was too dark to make a decent wide angle shot with my DSLR, and I didn't want to bother setting up my portable tripod in the front rows, so I only have a handful of lousy mobile phone shots:

 

Brosse_LSO.jpg

 

Perfect view of Maxine Kwok-Adams, as you can see. ;)

 

My few minor complaints first: The horns, and at times the woods, were a bit hard to hear over the rest of the orchestra, especially (it seemed to me) in the first half. I thought it may just have been due to my seat (the rest of the brass were elevated, but the horns were behind the strings and nearly invisible for me), but I think people in different seats had the same experience. There were some rather strange echo effects affecting the snare drum in Imperial March and Raiders March, and a bit of the brass also in the latter. And while I was generally a fan of Brosse's often slower tempi, I thought a part of Throne Room was just a tad too slow and dragged a bit.

 

But those are really insignificant quibbles when contrasted with the concert as a whole. The LSO is of course among the world's top orchestras, and I've heard many great performances from them, both on CD, and several times live. But they were at the top of their game that night, and rarely have I heard an orchestra play that well (technically) and with so much enthusiasm at the same time. Being there at the RAH, you could see in their faces how much they enjoyed playing this music. They were giving it their all, and I don't doubt that they were just as disappointed as all of us that Williams couldn't be there himself. For that alone I'd have loved to compare this to the cancelled Vienna Philharmonic concerts; I don't think that they as a whole have nearly as much affection (or perhaps even respect) for Williams as the LSO does. And the LSO's brass section is out of this world. I'm not a particular fan anymore of the Superman march, or even the Raider's March as a standalone piece, but hearing them played by the LSO's brass in top form is an amazing experience. Acoustics, aside from the above mentioned minor problems, were excellent as well, and I could pick up things that I hadn't heard in 24 years of listening to numerous recordings of these pieces (take that, Hollywood in Vienna, where everything is amplified and you still hear less than at this concert).

 

As for the programme, of course there's a tonne of other stuff that I would have loved to hear. And like others, I have played some of the CDs so many times that I can't listen to them regularly anymore, and probably wouldn't bother going to hear a random concert with them. But that doesn't mean I don't still enjoy them, and (perhaps also thanks to my interest in classical/orchestral music and its different interpretations in general) I don't think I'll ever stop being excited by a great performance of them. And this concert had them in spades. The Imperial March (my favourite also being the Skywalker Symphony recording) was outstanding. Dracula, with its brooding tempo, held the tension perfectly. Jurassic Park may have been the best version I've ever heard. I've been looking forward to the BFG suite, expecting it to really shine in a live setting, but it exceeded my expectations. We all (well, most of us) like to think little of the score, and theme-wise, it's just solid compared to Williams's earlier works in the genre (if he hadn't written those, I expect we'd be celebrating this as a major masterpiece in the current age of film music). But what Williams does here with an orchestra is incredible and can proudly stand alongside CE3K, and hearing it live shows that even more.

 

Just based on the performance, this would probably have been one of the best concerts I've attended regardless of the programme. Add the fact that it was a full Williams programme, and you get something truly special.

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#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal

#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265

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If Williams had actually been there its would have been the triumph of his performing career. 

 

It would have been a Blu-ray! An Evening With John Williams at the Royal Albert Hall: 2018. Bafta best concert film.

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Marian Schedenig

Marian Schedenig 8,192

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22 minutes ago, Nick1066 said:

I think JW takes these commitments seriously.  As long as his health improves. I'm confident he'll reschedule.

 

Apparently the main anchor point of this whole endeavour were the Vienna concerts, and he just threw in the LSO gig because he was on his way over anyway and wanted to play with them again. So rescheduling Vienna would probably have priority (it also seems to be a bucket list item for Williams). Obviously, if any of them are going to happen, I'm going, as long as I can get tickets and fit it in my schedule (which I will bend to its extremes if necessary).

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King Mark

King Mark 3,631

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4 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

Apparently the main anchor point of this whole endeavour were the Vienna concerts,

 Williams must be so depressed he didn't get to defeat the classical elitists

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Gruesome Son of a Bitch

Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488

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To be honest with you, I did have a terrible feeling when it was announced Williams was sick. I just kept thinking how JG and JH went to the Royal Albert Hall not long before they passed. Stupid, I know.

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