Performance of Harry Potter Suite by Hungarian orchestra.

[zoltan_902 141]

Interesting introduction, for those who understand (like I do, somewhat) Hungarian. The conductor compares the stylistic influence on JW's music of 20th and 21st century music, particularly Russian composers like Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, and Germans like Wagner and Strauss. It's very gratifying to hear the music critiqued in such a dignified and serious manner, befitting its sophistication in its own right, rather than vulgarising it merely in the context of kitsch film music.

Further edit: As watch more of this recording (I'm barely half way through as of writing this), I come to realise, this isn't intended as a concert per se, but as a very informative and insightful musicological lecture on JW's HP music - think Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts. I'm just glad I can comprehend most of it. 

[Holko 9,499]

I love Hollerung, he made both of his film music selection concerts I've been to very enjoyable with his style and anecdotes, and he certainly finds and highlights the interesting aspects and connections instead of thinking it below him or making it a complete clown show. I could try and transcribe/translate that intro tomorrow morning if anyone's interested.

[zoltan_902 141]

3 minutes ago, Holko said:

I love Hollerung, he made both of his film music selection concerts I've been to very enjoyable with his style and anecdotes. I could try and transcribe/translate that intro tomorrow if anyone's interested.

Thanks, I'm sure many would appreciate that!  

[King Mark 3,626]

I'm saving this video. It contains the first good sounding performance of Orchestral Double Trouble

[Holko 9,499]

Eh, fuck it. I'm doing the whole thing.

[zoltan_902 141]

3 minutes ago, Holko said:

Eh, fuck it. I'm doing the whole thing.

I'd gladly do at least part of it, but you'll probably do a better job :).

[crlbrg 381]

Love the deconstructed parts, even though I can't understand one word of Hungarian

[zoltan_902 141]

Just now, carlborg said:

Love the deconstructed parts, even though I can't understand one word of Hungarian

Indeed, I *adored* hearing the separate winds and string in isolation for the Nimbus 2000 theme. Just shows how unfathomably layered and intricate the theme is, even when the trumpets dominate. Most contemporary film composers could only dream of writing as complex as that. 

[Leitmotif 21]

I was lucky to be there. 

As a supplement, till 54:50 you can hear some musical details with hungarian explanations, but from 54:51 are the same, but complete pieces without interpretations.

[Holko 9,499]

Quote

Understandable Music: Magical John Williams - Harry Potter Suite

 

[Introduction about how this is not a season ticket crowd, but this is a redo of a concert that was included in their season ticket because the interest was so high they were surprised nd happy, the institute usually doesn't do these concerts twice]

 

Film music, we usually look at it, and especially the "serious" music and very conservative classical music world looks at it as less than a classical composition of full value. To John Williams, and specifically to Harry Potter, this is not true at all. Harry Potter is an entirely standalone and special moment of 20-21st century film music, in which contemporary music and how should I say, the universal European thinking meet in such an incredible way and create a magnificent, fascinating and musically, compositionally sparkling series of movements, or hours of music with a total mastery of the craft. To the misfortune of the movies, John Williams only wrote the music for 3 of them, so we don't know what else could have been like we do with Star Wars which he carried through and we know what it thus could be. Nevertheless, here too we see very sophisticated musical thinking, while it's enjoyable and fascinating at every moment.

 

It's very important that film music itself, but specifically this work, Harry Potter, has traceable precursors and roots which obviously show that this music originates in 19-20th century music, deeply and organically. The first source (the first source of all film music, really) is stage incidental music, Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream. From the forest's music to the fairies' dance, and the theme of magic is really a concrete prefiguration of this work, both are very similar in for example the violins having to play an astonishing number of notes in a short time, very fast ind virtuoso runs expressing a magical mood. Another important source of Harry Potter and John WIlliams' body of work are the late romantic symphonic poems, like Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade with its exotic sound and emotional world (magic is exotic too), and which heavily influenced for example Stravinsky's Firebird ballet, both of these works being an original source for this one, so if you accidentally listen to them, you'll end up thinking like many who were once at our film music concert where we played Wagner and pieces from John Williams - that Wagner is exactly like John Williams. So, Rinsky-Koraskov and Stravinsky are a little bit just like John Williams, I'm saying it like that because everyone feels better that way [he rushed that a bit, not exactly sure how he tried to phrase/mean that].

 

Another important source is RIchard Strauss, partly directly with his symphonic poem Till Eulenspiegel, which is a series of happy mischiefs, and has some relations to Harry Potter if we really want it, but partly with his compositional technique of concurrently playing multiple musical ideas, and it's still recogniseable, enjoyable, followable, and thus gives a special experience. Naturally we always have to mention Wagner, too, though in this work maybe it's not his leitmotif technique that's the most obvious like in Star Wars, (one time I'll do a parallel Wagner's RIng and Star Wars analysis, this person/theme in SW is this person/theme in Ring), but the Wagnerian sound is present very strongly, I'll show you a moment where you can really notice it.

So it has an awful lot of sources from Wagner, and roots strongly in 19-20th century music's modern, but not completely shying away from tradition kind of mentality. Harry Potter not only has sources, but it has influenced too, by today, I'll quickly show a short excerpt, everyone knows Hedwig's Theme, the main theme, if we're only thinking of that and for example the celeste's mysterious sound with which HP begins, and maybe the melody too a little bit, we can instantly recognise it in the Bence Kutrik opera we're playing next week: [plays bit] At the end, almost even Voldemort showed up (he will not appear in the HP Suite), so what you'll hear today will be 9 movements, which in this form never show up in the actual film recordings. Certain excerpts do appear, some scenes basically and wholly almost correspond to a concrete movie scene, but this is a standalone artistic creation from John Williams where he wrote basically small symphonic poems, 2-3 are composed of multiple elements, and they create a very gratifying concert piece.

 

A little bit of introduction about how he writes. Generally we have to say a good symphonic poem is always picturesque. We don't necessarily have to know what it's about, but we hear something and can think of something. Vivaldi's Four Seasons is one of the most popular pieces of music in history because although very people (everyone, even young people know it) know the actual story of the sonette, and it's not sure they'll recognise the dog barks because they don't dare play it ugly enough to be recogniseable as such, but generally we always get pictures and feel the spring, the storm, we can see certain things easily without words or even watching the movie for it. This is exactly the power of this music, and this is what JW feels, he creates movements that we can naturally play as concert music for Martians who haven't seen the movie (asks how many in the room haven't seen HP, congratulates them for coming, says "no comment" tongue-in-cheek, recommends them to think of pictures, it'll be easy). First is obviously the opening, Hedwig's Theme. Insane bravery from the author to start with a simple solitary cute celeste (an instrument which is not as unknown to us in an earlier form, if anyone's heard the Magic Flute, the magic bell goes on celeste today, it was played on a similar instrument back in the day, so magic and celeste have had a good relationship for a while now). Let's start Hedwig's Theme then.

 

[13:06-13:26] Hedwig's Theme Celeste demonstration

 

A fantastic colour, isn't it, so mysterious for some reason, and believe me, it would be even if you didn't know this was HP. So we're elevating the secrets and excitements. Strings join in too and we're racing with great momentum, we can almost see magic happening.

 

[14:03-14:42] further Hedwig bit

 

This theme which basically holds the entire film series together, is not just about the owl which only carries the news back and forth, but it's the symbol of magic itself. Thus it has many different faces, we can call this one enchanting when the magic is good magic, then sometimes it has evil faces too, but we'll get back to that. SO this is one leitmotif of the whole thing, but more like a main theme and base theme, from which many things grow. In this little movement appears the other important player, Nimbus-2000, the broomstick on which wizards do traffic. This is very elegant, playful music.

 

[16:02-16:08] Nimbus 2000 demonstration

 

Fantastic, and great orchestration, first on woodwinds (they'll play more in a special separate movement), but this isn't a simple factory broom but a B-Turbo Ferrary broomstick with great speed, let's see what sophisticated handmade moments illustrate it. We know the motif, woodwings play without bassoon to see how ornamented the rest is.

 

[17:24-17:39] Nimbus orchestration demonstration, woodwinds without bassoon main melody

 

This gets through very rarely, and you see at the end the main melody gets stronger, the B-Turbo motor is of course the most important but the precise workings and finish aren't negligible either. Let's see what the violins do with it, they don't have a shortage of notes and ornamentation either

 

[18:07-18:22] Nimbus orchestration demonstration, strings only

 

Now listen to them together and don't only pay attention to the loudest main theme, but all these tons of neat little touches to see this is not an ordinary broom, it's the peak of even magic broomsticks.

 

[18:49-19:04] Nimbus excerpt

 

We'll hear this part in a separate movement, it'll have a wholly different character. Another very exciting movement which is worth showing is about a strange character, [explains Gilderoy Lockhart], he expresses him in a funny way - the melody is made up of very few notes in a narrow range, and the rythm is uncomplicated too, one that an average 3-year old ca clap back to you. If not, that's on you. Teach it to them, it's not hard!

 

[21:26-22:07] Lockhart demonstration

 

This is roughly all that's heard in the film too, maybe not even this because they already talk over it or something, but JW sees this as important and it shows how indeniously he illustrates idiocy and pettiness. Remember, it's always easier to depict bad, evil, guilty, stupid are always easier to depict than perfect, beautiful, lasting. This piece is of course still playful, derisory, enjoyable and popular. The next movement I'd show is maybe the most remarkable, we usually don't play it in lieu of the main theme, but I'm still thinking next time this is what we should play on a film music concert, because it has a quite heart-stirring musical richness. This begins with Quidditch, the wizards' ball game, [jokes about how they can just enchant stadiums while we Hungarians build them for years and billions], with extraordinarily complex musical thinking. The most impotant bits are worth following. The strings again show a racing gesture, but a more characteristic rythm

 

[25:04-25:15] Quidditch, Third Year strings demonstration

 

Flutes and oboes emphasise this with a compulsive repetition symbolising a certain momentum [imitates Williams Tell overture]

 

[25:46-25:05] Quidditch, Third Year flute demonstration

 

Not pleasant, but very important for the force and momentum of the whole thing. Meanwhile there's a theme

 

[26:17-26:27] Quidditch, Third Year trumpet demonstration

 

This is interesting because it's not only a theme but shows another face of John Williams... sorry, first let's listen to them together.

 

[26:54-27:14] Quidditch, Third Year orchestra demonstration

 

And this movement is not only important because JW has a great ability for characterisation, but we can see he is a complete master of the craft too. In music history a very important thing is to show the counterpoint of a theme, too, in this very school I had a counterpoint class where all we learnt is how to write notes to an existing theme. The peak of this thinking is the fugue, which is a chase, themes sounding after one another, and when a theme is not playing that's important, too. This is complex musical knowledge, the great romantic composers got round to writing two fugues in their life difficultly, it's not that simple. Bach of course wrote two per day, it was a different world. Not because Bach was that much better than everyone else (yes he was), but his neighbur wrote two per day too, it's just that we... don't know those anymore. Maybe three, the poor sod. But in sum, this way of thinking is an important measure of musical knowledge, and now when it's about a chase, JW can't not show he can chase himself in the spirit of a fugue.

 

[29:25-29:47] Quidditch, Third Year fugue-esque demonstration

 

Naturally he doesn't write a fugue like Bach, the theme doesn't even come in 4 times as it should, but we feel that he could if he wanted to, or maybe the director said "thank you, that's enough". So this movement has further fantastic moments. The next is Scabbers, Ron's rat, actually an ugly wizard (I won't go into it because if I've seen it, I don't remember, but I don't even remember if I've seen it), another fantastic characteristic piece. If nobody tells me this is a rat with a bad wizard in it, I can still tell something's off, pizzicato, dry, fragmented, you do get a little shiver.

 

[31:33-31:53] Chasing Scabbers demonstration

 

Good music, but not joyful. Another, but phenomenal moment is for a little birdie (I don't know who it is, but I don't care, it's a little bird, even if it's not), another great scene (poor player sounds like she's free but she's actually seeing purple from the number of notes and their distance and speed).

 

[32:46-33:06] Bird's Flight demonstration

 

And the last piece of this movement is the snowball scene, another ingenious technique, we hear something like and English Christmas carol and picturesque indications of snowball hits.

 

[34:13-34:38] Snowball Fight demonstration

 

Aunt Marge's Waltz is another fantastic character piece, a comic waltz flying away at the end.

 

[35:23-35:43] Aunt Marge's Waltz demonstration

 

The ending is especially ingenious, if you've been to a ballet, not Stravinsky or contemporary, but Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker or Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty, they run around in desperately unnatural poses and then every proper ballet movement has a finale where everyone can show everything, elevating to madness, so he finishes with a bit vulgar and cheap ballet finale, he winks at us, great big ending to celebrate Aunt Marge taking up an orbital course.

 

[36:53-37:22] Aunt Marge ending demonstration

 

Whew. I gotta stop somewhere. The rest is coming tomorrow.

 

[Holko 9,499]

Quote

The most enigmatic and modern part of this whole work is the Knight Bus, a sort of chaos and dazzling speed again, speed which is conveyed by the bass here, who will act like Jazz bassists, stop with the music.

 

[38:23-38:35] Knight Bus bass demonstration, he encourages them to click like they do when they shouldn't

 

In the trafic chaos out most important are the horns, let's show trumpets horning first.

 

[39:08-39:14] Knight Bus trumpet demonstration

 

Bus still more interesting is the woodwinds' horning.

 

[39:27-39:53] Knight Bus woodwind demonstration

 

And we'll show some screams too to have enough excitement, let the flutes scream.

 

[40:14-40:20] Knight Bus flute demonstration

 

A nice gesture. We'll show another great moment, hurns and trombones please.

 

[40:38-40:42] Knight Bus brass demonstration

 

This is how they scream. So this is full of effects, and doesn't really have a theme. Whoever goes home whistling it afterwards gets a valuable present from me. There are other movements you'll be whistling, not this one. (I couldn't either). So many effects joining together, held together by another of John Williams's faces, he of course started as a bar pianist and got into the film music industry by playing for many composers who niticed his talent. He feels right at home in jazz, and he has many movements even in Star Wars, a great jazz movement we usually play, so here this is basically classically jazz.

 

[41:51-42:58] Knight Bus demonstration

 

This is the moment when Harry Potter's smeared on the windshield. A fascinating piece, I hope you'll enjoy it when we're playing it in whole. So we've seen these movements that are very charcteristic, it's a rare ability. And they fit into the movies very well but if you think about it, you barely hear any of it in the movie. So that you'll understand what I said early on, that he has a magnificent grasp of composing technique, giving the themes multiple faces and sides like often in romantic music, I'd show Chamber of Secrets, basically a modified version of the main theme, in a whole wider range, more distorted and definitely threatening, and of course full of mystical darkness, scary horror musical elements. The strings are great at that, if they start playing one note very quickly in a special mode when they're playing not a nice but a little distorted sound, that normally gives everyone immediate goosebumps without watching the movie.

 

[45:49-46:26] Chamber of Secrets opening demonstration

 

So, a more scary and devilish face of the main theme. The same way our Nimbus has a modified face too, that comes up in a wizard song and elsewhere. The theme is kind of recogniseable, but very different.

 

[47:18-47:56] Double Trouble demonstration

 

We again see that notes and thoughts can express opposite things, a typically romantic thought, not like Bach, or Mozart who chooses a new idea if he wants to express the opposite of something, and Im saying this  to the youngsters, an important turning point of European culture is Goethe's Faust in which he asks whether good will can turn evil in us, is the devil in us or is he an external force. The arts read this by having positive and negative sides of the same musical thought, especially noticeable here with good and bad wizards, since wizarding itself isn't inherently good or bad, it depends on who used it for what. In this way JW uses a very romantic operatic way of thinking for all this and we clearly see opposites expressed in his works by seeing multiple faces of characteristic things. FInally, let me show a bit of the final movement, Harry's Wondrous World, immediately a very Wagnerian sound, but also finally a melody with immeasurable beauty and, if I may say, Hollywoodean beauty, not only characteristic but emotional. This movement is about our hero's emotions, nature, love, friendships, goodness, everything important to his character expressed musically, there's triumph, intimacy and playfulness.even some insolent grimacing grotesque. And then with love I'm wishing you to have good fun in the second part when we're playing these 9 pieces, which are not every single one that JW recommended for concert performances, but the best of them, a great cross-section of this work, and mind that if you like what you're hearing, they can feel free to listen to Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Wagner and many others too, because this is typical classical thinking. JW wrote  a lot of film music, we can be inclined to think this is "just film music", no, this is absolutely one of the peaks of the classical music development of the 20-21st century. Thank you for coming, come again, young ones especially, don't be afraid of concerts, you see uncle's not hurting you. So a short piece, than after the break, the whole suite.

 

[53:17-54:34] Harry's Wondrous World ending demonstration

 

[55:18-1:00:17] Movement I - Hedwig's Theme

 

[1:00:37-1:02:45] Movement II - Gilderoy Lockhart

 

[1:02:58-1:07:31] Movement III - The Chamber of Secrets

 

[1:07:48-1:12:46] Movement IV - Witches, Wands and Wizards

 

[1:13:00-1:15:10] Movement V - Aunt Marge's Waltz

 

[1:15:37-1:18:28] Movement VI - The Knight Bus

 

[1:18:51-1:21:47] Movement VII - Double Trouble (orchestral)

 

[1:22:07-1:24:21] Movement VIII - Nimbus 2000

 

[1:24:37-1:29:19] Movement IX - Harry's Wondrous World

 

I skipped or condensed sentences here and there to keep my sanity, freeform not word-by-word prerehearsed, studied and memorised speech can be a bit messy anyway. Great concert at the Music Academy, 5 minute applause, fine performance. Double Trouble is indeed impeccable and sections of Quidditch Third Year were on par with the original. I loved the striped breakdown demonstrations.

[crlbrg 381]

@Holko Thank you so much this is amazing!

I wonder if the decision for the trumpet to play the voice part in bar 67 of Double Trouble came from the conductor, or if its indicated in mancanza in the parts (nothing written in the score).

[crumbs 14,305]

Marvelous work @Holko! You're a star.

[Tom 4,640]

21 hours ago, King Mark said:

I'm saving this video. It contains the first good sounding performance of Orchestral Double Trouble

I did not know this piece even existed.  Excellent arrangement.  My favorite remains the crazy string version of the end credits, but this is fun.  

[Bayesian 1,359]

This is incredible, @Holko. You just won the internet for the rest of the year. Thank you so much!

[crumbs 14,305]

I really love that Fiddler on the Roof-esque intro to the Double Trouble concert suite.

[Leitmotif 21]

The next John Williams concert of the hungarian orchestra (Budafoki Dohnányi Zenekar)

 

Understandable Music

COLLECTIVE MUSIC MEMORY

John Williams: Star Wars

 

on 02/05/2021

at  Zeneakadémia, 1061 Budapest, Liszt F. tér 8.

 

Tickets

 

 

[Holko 9,499]

From the ticket availability, I suspect they'll hold another one like they supposedly did for this HP one.