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John Williams & the Vienna Philharmonic: January 18/19 2020


Ricard

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was a little bit pissy about JW changing the tracklist (Across The Stars) but after attending both concerts, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t change a thing.

 

It was such amazing event. And to have it filmed, recorded and preserved, all in HD, in a professionally released package, both on a CD and a Blu-ray Disc, is beyond my wildest dreams.

 

God Bless John Williams!

 

(... and Deutsche Grammophon. 😉)

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doesn't spotify add some extra processing to the files that makes them sound terrible no matter what?

 

I hated every "preview" of soundtracks that were initially available only as spotify streaming rips

 

webm Youttube videos with Opus audio sound pretty good

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If you pay for Spotify, you can choose to stream in high quality, which sounds perfectly fine.

 

If you're bootlegging new albums instead of paying for them, the person who created the download might have used the normal, non-high quality stream from Spotify, and then further messed it up by compressing to MP3

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3 minutes ago, Jay said:

If you pay for Spotify, you can choose to stream in high quality, which sounds perfectly fine.

Provided your region doesn't only get shit quality warbly versions of some albums.

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1 hour ago, artguy360 said:

The Vienna performance is perfect to me. Very punchy, fast but not a sprint, and appropriately declamatory.

Yep. The Dudamel recording with the LA Phil sounds like a joke now, compared to the fabulous intonation of the Vienna Philharmonic.

 

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26 minutes ago, MaxTheHouseelf said:

Yep. The Dudamel recording with the LA Phil sounds like a joke now, compared to the fabulous intonation of the Vienna Philharmonic.

 

 

The whole album was a bit of a joke to me... you'd think the winning combination of Dudamel/LA Phil/Williams would produce GOLD but for some reason this weak album was a bit of a let down. From most of the recordings I've heard them do it just sounds like the brass section needs a bit more motivation.. esp for Williams' music. But of course the Vienna recordings will be absolute gold dust. JP and Imperial March have proven to be worthy interpretations so far. Can't wait for SW Main Title and Dartmoor. Thank you DG for getting it right this time round!

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51 minutes ago, Steve said:

Absolutely can't understand the dislike for the Dudamel Album. It's a fantastic sounding recording and a great performance. No more, no less.

 

Let's put it like this: one is like a Bangles album, the other one isn't.

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1 hour ago, Steve said:

Absolutely can't understand the dislike for the Dudamel Album. It's a fantastic sounding recording and a great performance. No more, no less.

 

I agree, I think the LA album is terrific from start to finish.  (My only quibble is they play the shortened opening to the Olympic Fanfare.)  Having said that, i'm fully prepared for the Vienna album to be even better!

 

 

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1 hour ago, Fabulin said:

The brass is rather dormant, but Dudamel's tempi and the strings and woodwinds of the LA Phil are both superb.

 

The tempi are my main issue with the Dudamel album. Not so much the tempo choices, but in many tracks, it sounds like the tempo is either unstable or the timings of the individual instruments are imprecise and not quite in sync. The effect is that it sounds like the music is accelerating in my places where it actually isn't.

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1 hour ago, Steve said:

Absolutely can't understand the dislike for the Dudamel Album. It's a fantastic sounding recording and a great performance. No more, no less.

Agreed! I also don't understand why people insist on hearing slow tempi in pieces that beg to be played quickly. Brossé understood that. Williams has this weird tendency to slow everything down and then when he really needs to (HSATP), he does the exact opposite.

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1 hour ago, tmarps said:

sounds like the brass section needs a bit more motivation

Yeah thats true.

 

1 hour ago, tmarps said:

Can't wait for SW Main Title and Dartmoor

The trumpets on Dartmoor blew me away!

 

1 hour ago, Steve said:

It's a fantastic sounding recording and a great performance. No more, no less.

I think the recording itself is just not that good, it misses depth, dynamics and clarity. That is why I dont listen to it much, I rather prefer the Boston Pops recordings, for example.

Apart from the Imperial March, their performance is totally fine.

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2 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Agreed! I also don't understand why people insist on hearing slow tempi in pieces that beg to be played quickly. Brossé understood that. Williams has this weird tendency to slow everything down and then when he really needs to (HSATP), he does the exact opposite.

 

If only JW had your phone number, so you could teach him to become a better interpreter of his own music. ;)

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1 hour ago, Matt S. said:

 

I agree, I think the LA album is terrific from start to finish.  (My only quibble is they play the shortened opening to the Olympic Fanfare.)  Having said that, i'm fully prepared for the Vienna album to be even better!

 

 

Yeah, can't wait until monday and august. But nothing comes close to hearing it live in the golden hall. A once in a lifetime experience!

54 minutes ago, MaxTheHouseelf said:

I think the recording itself is just not that good, it misses depth, dynamics and clarity. That is why I dont listen to it much, I rather prefer the Boston Pops recordings, for example.

Apart from the Imperial March, their performance is totally fine.

The Boston Pops albums were not recorded in concert, though. I prefer them also over the LA Phil, but that doesn't make the LA Phil album bad imo. I tend to favour recordings conducted by Williams himself usually.

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35 minutes ago, Steve said:

Yeah, can't wait until monday and august. But nothing comes close to hearing it live in the golden hall. A once in a lifetime experience!

Absolutely!

 

36 minutes ago, Steve said:

The Boston Pops albums were not recorded in concert, though. I prefer them also over the LA Phil, but that doesn't make the LA Phil album bad imo. I tend to favour recordings conducted by Williams himself usually.

Yeah, maybe it has to do with the mics they used I dont know. Anyway looking forward to monday ;)

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4 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Agreed! I also don't understand why people insist on hearing slow tempi in pieces that beg to be played quickly. Brossé understood that. Williams has this weird tendency to slow everything down and then when he really needs to (HSATP), he does the exact opposite.

 It's odd because the OST versions are always the "ideal" version , but when he conducts live they can sound a little odd

 

Jurassic Park: too fast

Han Solo and the Princess :too fast

Rebellion is Reborn:too slow

Adventures of Han:too slow

 

what I heard of the Vienna concert sounds good though

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4 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

And I don't understand why people insist on fast tempi in pieces that are best played slowly.

 

(In many cases of course, faster *and* slower tempi can both work very well in their own ways)

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I have a question which I've been wanting to ask for a while and it keeps slipping my mind....

 

In the Musikverein was sat next to a guy who appeared to be on his own on the Saturday performance. We both responded at the same time with "oooooh" when John announced the Cinderella Liberty encore, and turned to laugh at each other. I then bumped into the same guy on the Sunday, he was sat on one of the benches in the foyer and I said a quick hello. Short-ish curly light hair. 

 

Does this ring a bell for any of you? I was just wondering if he might be a member here. 

 

And just to keep this post current...... I think Jurassic Park has suffered more so than most other Williams pieces I've heard in concert in terms of tempo. I'm really not sure why it always seems to be fast. I think this Vienna recording is just the right side of "wrong," if there is such a thing. It certainly felt fine in the moment, but then again, everything seemed amazing that weekend!

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7 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

If only JW had your phone number, so you could teach him to become a better interpreter of his own music. ;)


I probably shouldn’t take your joke too seriously, but I’m getting a bit annoyed by the notion on this forum that Williams’ conducting is in principle superior to anything else. Of course while he is the composer, the fact is that his tempi will sometimes differ from OST or recordings from when he was younger himself. So it’s perfectly reasonable to prefer another recording, especially when they’re done by someone like Dudamel. 

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He played Adventures of Han super slow after recording it a few weeks before much faster

37 minutes ago, Remco said:


 the fact is that his tempi will sometimes differ from OST or recordings from when he was younger himself.

 

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1 hour ago, bigjimwilson said:

And just to keep this post current...... I think Jurassic Park has suffered more so than most other Williams pieces I've heard in concert in terms of tempo. I'm really not sure why it always seems to be fast.


Perhaps you're used to another recording of it, like the one on the OST album? It's very slow, and meditative, probably so that it could match up with the lazy movements of the Brachiosaurus in the film, and if you've been listening to that a lot, a fast-paced version might seem weird. At first, I was also of the opinion that John Williams speeds it up too much, but I've deliberately switched to the other recordings of the theme in anticipation of the concert (I expected him to conduct it in his usual tempo, which seems to be fast nowadays), and that tempo kinda grew on me, after many, many listens. So the recording from Vienna feels alright to me. It's lively, as it should be, and when I now go back to the OST, that feels too slow and dragged-out.

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12 hours ago, King Mark said:

 It's odd because the OST versions are always the "ideal" version , but when he conducts live they can sound a little odd

 

Jurassic Park: too fast

 

Perhaps the OST versions were conducted by Artie Kane? ;)

 

Karol

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15 hours ago, tmarps said:

Anyone got any ideas on how I might be able to stream Monday’s broadcast in the U.K.? VPN the only logical way?

I think VPN is probably the most straightforward way. (can't think of another anyway) Here's the official livestream again:

https://www.servustv.com/jetzt-live/

 

You get different versions of the TV channel (and stream) depending on if you're in Austria or Germany, but the concert should be on both. Let's hope that it doesn't buckle and that the concert isn't blacked out for some reason. 😬

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1 hour ago, Matthias said:

I think VPN is probably the most straightforward way. (can't think of another anyway) Here's the official livestream again:

https://www.servustv.com/jetzt-live/

 

You get different versions of the TV channel (and stream) depending on if you're in Austria or Germany, but the concert should be on both. Let's hope that it doesn't buckle and that the concert isn't blacked out for some reason. 😬

Thanks Matthias!!!!!! 

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