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


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4 hours ago, alawill75 said:

Now that's what I call a weird video... :lol:

 

 

 

The guy also wrote a blog post (English auto-translation), which is ever weirder to read.

 

One thing that caught my eye is that he mentions that a John Williams Facebook-Fangruppe was meeting at a restaurant after the concert. Are there any Facebook fan groups, or did he just mean us?

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9 minutes ago, First TROS March Accolyte said:

He probably meant the Falco meeting. @publicist attended it, no?

Yeah, you're right. I didn't know about the meeting at Falco's. Here's the German-speaking Facebook group that was referenced.

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1 hour ago, Matthias said:

Has no one pointed out yet that the Vienna Phil. accidentally tagged jwfan.com‘s instagram account in their announcement of the CD/DVD recording? 😂 

 

#recognize

 

1 hour ago, Matthias said:

 

 

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18 minutes ago, Gurkensalat said:
Similarily he told the story later the he first did not know that Luke and Leia were siblings, so he wrote a love theme for them. But that story concerns Leia´s Theme from Star Wars, not „Luke and Leia“ from ROTJ which he played afterwards! So again he was using parts of his usual stories, but not in the correct context. I guess he has no interest to make new speeches, so he used just those usual parts that came to his mind…
 
 

Does it?  I thought that Leias theme was never intended as a love theme. The fact that they are siblings is not officially revealed until ROTJ - Luke is still trying to hit on Leia during ESB so it would make sense that JW wrote it as a love theme for the ROTJ before it was revealed later in the movie. 


The monitor story is pretty cool - wish I stayed there too to watch. 

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2 hours ago, tmarps said:

According to this description from the delightful ASM, herself and Williams DID go straight to the airport to fly home... !! 😮


Not necessarily; it depends who she is talking about when she says "we". She had to fly to Kansas City because she had a recital to play there.

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4 hours ago, Gurkensalat said:
Doesn't the Philharmoniker use this quite often? I seem to remember several video recordings with it. The idea behind it is the make the violas more prominent, since they are in danger of being overwhelmed by the other instruments. 

Yes, violas on the far right is pretty common for them. They line up according to what the conductor wants (which can vary with different repertoire) . Mariss Jansons used it last year conducting an incredible Symphonie Fantastique; Welser-Möst likes it too, I think. Only in the recent New Year's concerts, it's always been split violins (earlier, with Maazel & Boskovsky this wasn't case, though).

What was a little unusual about the JW concerts was the basses not being at the rear (which is Viennese tradition), that's not something you see too often. Maybe due to space constraints or due to JW prefering the American way. 🇺🇸😉

 

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28 minutes ago, Biodome said:

I loved how after the concert on Sunday, the tuba and bass remained on stage to play a bit of the Imperial March. The remaining audience in the hall gave the two performers a good applause!

 

I was in the balcony above them when they did that the first time. Judging by their faces, they weren't expecting the applause they got. I think that was my favourite part of the whole concert. :lol:

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1 hour ago, Gurkensalat said:
 

Doesn't the Philharmoniker use this quite often? I seem to remember several video recordings with it. The idea behind it is the make the violas more prominent, since they are in danger of being overwhelmed by the other instruments. 

 

That's interesting, because I've heard the exact opposite reasoning - that the cellos project better towards the audience when they sit in the middle (good when they have a lot of melodic lines), and thus someone else has to sit on the outside. Whether that's the violas or second violins will then depend on the preference for having antiphonal vs homogeneous violins.

 

Which one's true, no idea - depends on the hall, maybe.

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18 hours ago, hornist said:

This must be language/cultural thing, always I talk with the germans publicist/blumenkohl/mkkyver it always will end up badly, dont know why. 

 

Try me. Works like a charm. :rock2:

 

(But then again, I'm Bavarian...)

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On 1/20/2020 at 11:13 AM, Obi said:

 

This video was deleted by youtube on monday afternoon... I know that a dvd will be released, but this short video made me cry and thrill (not as much as the concert itself, that said). It was a capture of the beginning of the imperial march, with the great applause by the audience.

Was it filmed by someone from the forum ? I really, really wish I could have the file. We can feel the incredible atmosphere of the moment in it...

 

I still can't believe it was real. Like some of you, I haven't been able to listen to music yet. It all looks so... insipid ! after such an event

 

I was wondering if it would have been as memorable if it had happened last year as planned. The fact that it was cancelled, for health reason, would have made people realize that his venue in Europe was really something extraordinary and maybe unique ? Wasn't it a blessing in disguise finally ?

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3 hours ago, Biodome said:

I loved how after the concert on Sunday, the tuba and bass remained on stage to play a bit of the Imperial March. The remaining audience in the hall gave the two performers a good applause!

 

At the moment, you can still see a clip of that (including the Williams autographs on their instruments) here:

https://www.instagram.com/stories/musikverein.wien/

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4 hours ago, Gurkensalat said:

Doesn't the Philharmoniker use this quite often? I seem to remember several video recordings with it. The idea behind it is the make the violas more prominent, since they are in danger of being overwhelmed by the other instruments. 

 

I guess JW suspected the violas would fuck up, so he buried them as good as he could.

 

19 hours ago, hornist said:

This must be language/cultural thing, always I talk with the germans publicist/blumenkohl/mkkyver it always will end up badly, dont know why. 

 

There's always that fear of sparking a third world war. :)

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18 minutes ago, Tydirium said:

Annnd right on cue, here comes the snobby Slipped Disc article with its elitist readers chiming in with their uninformed thoughts on Williams:

 

https://slippedisc.com/2020/01/bigger-than-brahms-john-williams-in-vienna/

 

I don't see an article there. Just a quote of ASM's Instagram post and user comments.

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Good point; will edit my comment accordingly. I visit SD pretty frequently and enjoy many of Lebrecht's posts, but whenever he posts anything about Williams (I get the feeling he isn't his biggest fan) the user comments tend to quickly become unbearable. As is the case with this one.

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10 minutes ago, Martinland said:

...and now for something completely the same:

 

As time is passing, memories of the event(s) we witnessed seem, to me at least, to be more and more of a dream-like quality, making it hard for me to adjust to "normal" life. It doesn't help that each morning for the last three days I was recalling details of them during half-sleep.

 

It was a dream, that much is certain. ;)

Just keep an eye on the spinning top, and you will be fine.  

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1 hour ago, Tydirium said:

 

It's a great piece, but I wish he'd have done "The Rise of Skywalker" instead. What better place to give the world premiere of that one, than the Musikverein with the VPO?

Imagine those woodwind and brass chorales played by the VPO :lovethis:

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3 hours ago, Nagnes said:

 

This video was deleted by youtube on monday afternoon... I know that a dvd will be released, but this short video made me cry and thrill (not as much as the concert itself, that said). It was a capture of the beginning of the imperial march, with the great applause by the audience.

Was it filmed by someone from the forum ? I really, really wish I could have the file. We can feel the incredible atmosphere of the moment in it...

 


Here's a better version, for you to enjoy (until they take it down).

 

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Guy’s not using a score either. It’s there but he knows he doesn’t need to open it. It would be a distraction from engaging with the orchestra in his final moments of being able to play with them in front of an audience.

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10 hours ago, Martinland said:

...and now for something completely the same:

 

As time is passing, memories of the event(s) we witnessed seem, to me at least, to be more and more of a dream-like quality, making it hard for me to adjust to "normal" life. It doesn't help that each morning for the last three days I was recalling details of them during half-sleep.

 

It was a dream, that much is certain. ;)


I'm in the same space. This weird state where I listened to the first two pieces of the concert on my headphones, and I immediately went "no no no, that's not what that's supposed to sound like...the sound is wrong and the dynamics are lacking". So strange, and I agree with you, the whole thing was a dream.

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7 hours ago, tmarps said:

Guy’s not using a score either. It’s there but he knows he doesn’t need to open it. It would be a distraction from engaging with the orchestra in his final moments of being able to play with them in front of an audience.

If I noticed correctly from my seat, the score you can see in the video is the score to Raiders. I don't think he even had a score to the Imperial March...

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8 hours ago, Camillu said:


Here's a better version, for you to enjoy (until they take it down).

 

For sure it's great !! Made me cry (again...), particularly the horns mentionned before !! And I think it's the first video I see with this view of the maestro and the musiciens. Thanks a lot !!
Was it on the 1st or the 2nd concert ? I attended the 2nd, and I would say this is on saturday's one, but I'm no more sure of anything. My brain is still upside down :)
But I find the reaction of the audience at the beginning far more intense in the other video, the one I'm searching for. It's these few 1st seconds I'm looking for (from the other concert then).

 

Thank you anyway. And please, all of you who managed to film short sequences, share them if you can ! The DVD will be wonderfull, but as someone said, it will be just like buying a postcard or a photobook vs. taking your own photos. These stolen videos, even if not filmed by myself (I couldn't, too close to a "guard"), are more precious and moving for me :)

 

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