John Williams albums by Philips Records (Boston Pops)

[Bespin 8,483]

Long tracks cost higher to reissue, that's a fact. Good point.

[Jay 37,364]

Maybe because the song is in the movie twice, once by Kelly and once by Garland, and they wanted to make the Kelly section of the album longer

[Jay 37,364]

So reflecting on the entire album series, I will share my ranking of all the albums

 

The great albums

1. Pops in Space
2. Aisle Seat
3. Out of This World
4. Swing, Swing, Swing
5. Pops in Love
6. Holst - The Planets
7. By Request
8. Salute to Hollywood
9. Pops by George: The Music of Gershwin
   
   The OK albums
10. That's Entertainment
11. We Wish You A Merry Christmas  
12. On Stage
13. Peter and the Wolf/Nutcracker
14. America, The Dream Goes On
15. Digital Jukebox
16. Pops Britannia
    
    The meh albums
17. Pops on the March
18. Pops Around The World (Digital Overtures)
19. With A Song In My Heart
20. Bernstein by Boston
21. Pops a la Russe
22. Lucky To Be Me

 

Anybody else want to share their opinions on the series?

[Alfonso Tornero 0]

I recently acquired this recording, which is being reissued in a Decca box set. My question: Any clue about the authorship of the voice-piano arrangements? Could they be by Williams himself?

[Jay 37,364]

There is no arranger credited on the physical CD edition ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Bespin 8,483]

If John Williams plays the piano himself, then he surely started from the original partitions, changing some things here and there... you know... Enough to credit himself as an arranger?  It seems not.

[1977 1,743]

On 28/12/2021 at 4:47 PM, Jay said:

So reflecting on the entire album series, I will share my ranking of all the albums

 

The great albums

1. Pops in Space
2. Aisle Seat
3. Out of This World
4. Swing, Swing, Swing
5. Pops in Love
6. Holst - The Planets
7. By Request
8. Salute to Hollywood
9. Pops by George: The Music of Gershwin
   
   The OK albums
10. That's Entertainment
11. We Wish You A Merry Christmas  
12. On Stage
13. Peter and the Wolf/Nutcracker
14. America, The Dream Goes On
15. Digital Jukebox
16. Pops Britannia
    
    The meh albums
17. Pops on the March
18. Pops Around The World (Digital Overtures)
19. With A Song In My Heart
20. Bernstein by Boston
21. Pops a la Russe
22. Lucky To Be Me

 

Anybody else want to share their opinions on the series?

Bernstein by Boston and Pops on the March are top drawer for me.

 

To be fair though, I haven't listened to a number of the albums so can't really give a definitive answer. I would imagine based on the content that Pops by George would also be a winner for me.

 

If I had to be picky now I'd only get the ones with Williams compositions on.

 

I'd love a 2-CD compilation with only the Williams tracks (and a similar one -possibly a 6-CD - for the Sony era stuff would be nice too, but focussing on the conventional orchestral arrangements only). Maybe I'll create my own someday.

[Jay 37,364]

The big boxset wasn't the end of the line; now available in any country where it is already Friday is a new Christmas compilation

 

 

https://music.apple.com/nz/album/christmas-collection/1647783734

 

@Bespin discography notice

[Luke Skywalker 1,795]

Anything not on the boxset?

[Jay 37,364]

The box set was 100% complete

[Bespin 8,483]

20 minutes ago, Jay said:

The big boxset wasn't the end of the line; now available in any country where it is already Friday is a new Christmas compilation

 

 

https://music.apple.com/nz/album/christmas-collection/1647783734

 

@Bespin discography notice

 

It seems to be a totally tasteless compilation of everything labeled "Christmas" recorded by John Williams and the BPO.

 

To avoid at all cost I must say!

[Matt S. 493]

What the hell did they do, break up the suites into individual tracks?  That’s got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve seen.

[Bayesian 1,363]

But we can at least all agree that the album artwork is nice!

[Amer 2,109]

So this means more themed collections to come forth? It would be more interesting and worthwhile if they managed to remaster these along the way.

[Jay 37,364]

Today I listened to a recently-ish acquired compilation:

 

 

The Very Best of John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra (1995)

 

This is actually published by Reader's Digest, under license from Polygram.  It's a 4-CD set in a double jewel case, and all 4 CDs are very long, which makes the title a little funny; It contains close to half of the entire Philips catalog, so doesn't really merit "very best" criteria!

 

It's surprisingly light on Williams compositions, only including the Liberty Fanfare, Superman March, and Raiders March, all on CD1.  The set mostly showcases upbeat popular music that had appeared throughout his series of albums with Philips.  The back cover manages to fit every track title in, and also reveals that the tracks on each disc are grouped into 2 or 3 "mini albums" within them.

 

I had fun revisiting all this material again; The compilation has a fairly decent flow and seemed to cover a lot of the fun pieces I remembered, and not really have any that bored me.  No Jessye Norman here at all!

 

The booklet is really funny; I've never seen another CD booklet like it in my entire lifetime.  It's small - slightly under 4" across and about 4 1/4" tall, so its taller than it is wide, and completely undersized compared to normal CD booklets; it just floats loose in the case, nowhere to fit into.

 

Someone named Barrymore Laurence Scherer wrote the liner notes, and the beginning part nicely summarizes the history of the Boston Pops as well as Williams himself.  Then it offers paragraph or so about every single selection here for the rest of the booklet.  Then the final 3 pages offer an alphabetical listing of every selection here, with columns telling you what page to find the write-up, and what CD or tape track to find the selection.

 

I suppose it acts as a nice overview for someone who doesn't want to dive into the whole series.  I found it at a Savers for $3.

 

Here's the tracklist, which luckily I found on discogs.com so didn't have to type out

 

		America, The Dream Goes On
1-1		Liberty Fanfare	4:12
1-2		America The Beautiful	3:07
1-3		This Land Is Your Land	3:28
1-4		Richard Rodgers' Waltzes	5:59
1-5		March From "Superman"	4:23
1-6		Fanfare For The Common Man	2:58
1-7		America, The Dream Goes On	4:30
1-8		Hoedown From Rodeo	3:27
1-9		Seventy-Six Trombones	2:58
		The Pops Play A Movie Spectacular
1-10		Theme From A Summer Place	2:38
1-11		Singin' In The Rain	3:38
1-12		Over The Rainbow	3:08
1-13		The Trolley Song	3:25
1-14		Somewhere Out There	3:39
1-15		March From Raiders Of The Lost Ark	3:08
1-16		A Salute To Fred Astaire	8:29
1-17		Theme From 2001: A Space Odyssey (Also Sprach Zarathustra)	1:46
1-18		Theme From New York, New York	3:20
		Quiet Night...With The Pops
2-1		Fantasia On "Greensleeves"	4:36
2-2		Theme From Out Of Africa	2:55
2-3		Clair De Lune	4:33
2-4		Adagio For Strings And Organ	6:23
		Starlight Swing...With The Pops
2-5		Sleepy Lagoon	2:45
2-6		String Of Pearls	3:08
2-7		Begin The Beguine	3:14
2-8		Song Of India	3:26
2-9		Sing, Sing, Sing	3:58
		The Pops On Broadway
2-10		Sophisticated Ladies (A Tribute To Duke Ellington)	8:21
2-11		Memory	4:29
2-12		There's No Business Like Show Business	3:22
2-13		Slaughter On Tenth Avenue	8:42
2-14		Overture To A Chorus Line	9:12
		The Pops Salute All-Time Popular Favorites
3-1		Ebb Tide	4:00
3-2		More	3:31
3-3		Here You Come Again	2:55
3-4		Unchained Melody	3:38
3-5		The Girl From Ipanema	3:18
3-6		Theme From Summer Of '42 (The Summer Knows)	3:48
3-7		Friendly Persuasion (Thee I Love)	3:48
3-8		Where Is Your Heart? (The Song From Moulin Rouge)	3:03
3-9		Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing	3:26
		The Pops Around The World
3-10		Never On Sunday	2:47
3-11		La Bamba	4:40
3-12		Irish Tune From Country Derry (Danny Boy)	3:44
3-13		American Medley	7:39
3-14		Tuxedo Junction	2:51
3-15		Fiddler On The Roof Medley	7:22
3-16		Ciribiribin	2:48
		Pops...Go The Classics
4-1		Rhapsody In Blue	16:04
4-2		Pavane	6:26
4-3		Orb And Sceptre (Coronation March)	6:48
4-4		The Swan	3:05
		A Pops Tribute To Gershwin
4-5		An American In Paris	18:39
		Marching With The Pops
4-6		St. Louis Blues March	2:59
4-7		Under The Double Eagle	3:15
4-8		American Salute (When Johnny Comes Marching Home)	4:27
4-9		Strike Up The Band	2:45

[Andy 4,129]

I have this one too. I borrowed it from a mentor teacher decades ago.

[rough cut 1,714]

Who is Barrymore Laurence Scherer?

 

Naxos:

Quote

Barrymore Laurence Scherer , a native New Yorker, is a music critic for The Wall Street Journal and a contributing editor of Art & Auction magazine, where he specializes in 19 th-century art and decorative arts. On radio, he has been a commentator for NPR’s Performance Today.Named a Speaker in the Humanities by the New York Council for the Humanities, he has taught on “Oscar Wilde and the Belle Epoque” at Sarah Lawrence College, and as an independent scholar he has lectured extensively on opera, classical music, and the Victorian age for Lincoln Center Great Performers, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic as well as at venues around the country. In addition, as a scriptwriter and actor he writes and does voiceover work. Mr. Scherer is also author of the critically acclaimed book Bravo! A Guide to Opera for the Perplexed. With his wife and their dog he lives amidst a gratifying number of kindred spirits in Westchester, New York.

 

Here's a book he wrote, published in 2007:

 

[BB-8 3,478]

Who did the cover art?

 

[of the 4CD set]

[Jay 37,364]

I couldn't tell you >shrug<

[Bespin 8,483]

This 4 CD appears as a good thematic compilation, on paper... but in fact, it's very dull as a listening experience!

[BB-8 3,478]

Don't know where to post this, but the new Decca/DG/Philips Jessye Norman 42CD+3DVD box should contain at least two discs with JW.

 

CD38    With a Song in My Heart 
CD39    Lucky To Be Me 

https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/p51-i0028948510146/jessye-norman/the-complete-studio-recitals-on-decca-philips-deutsche-grammophon/index.html