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Harry Potter Box recommendations


mxsch

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That's great! I love the Defay Ensemble stuff. Some of my favorite parts of the score. The more medieval sounding music is the best Harry Potter has probably ever been.

 

People give Patrick Doyle a lot of crap but we must remember that Williams broke the mold first. By POA even he was basically only reprising Hedwig's Theme.

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Just rewatched the scene on YouTube, and I disagree. I believe the choir would've made a huge difference on the scene. But I guess Cuarón thought it was too epic too early in the movie.

 

But particularly I'd say that scene with choir would've been great!

 

 

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14 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

JW must strongly prefer it that way: other than a slight tweak to the end credits, the only way the live-to-projection version significantly differs from the film is it does include the choir during the Quidditch cue.

 

Interesting! I missed POA when it played locally (boy I regret that now). Does all the source music get played live, also? Dufay, Courtyard, etc.?

 

8 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

But I guess Cuarón thought it was too epic too early in the movie.

 

Personally the film version makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Love the way the whole soundtrack goes quiet (even the sound effects) and highlights the very mysterious rendition of Sirius' motif (which is totally lost on the album version underneath the chorus). It's a great contrast with the dramatic visuals.

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6 minutes ago, crumbs said:

 

Interesting! I missed POA when it played locally (boy I regret that now). Does all the source music get played live, also? Dufay, Courtyard, etc.?

 

Pretty much! But it's scored so that more modern instruments can take over the parts, as is usually necessary.

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8 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Interesting! I missed POA when it played locally (boy I regret that now). Does all the source music get played live, also? Dufay, Courtyard, etc.?

 

Yep!  A Winter's Spell is especially awesome in concert, as you can hear it all very clearly, unlike the film

 

1 minute ago, Datameister said:

Pretty much! But it's scored so that more modern instruments can take over the parts, as is usually necessary.

 

The Knight Bus music probably has the most instrumental changes I suppose, but it still sounds great

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At the concert I attended I could hear it very well indeed!  Could be the sort of thing that is different depending on venue, and where you seat is in the venue, i suppose

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And how well they can be bothered to mix it. When I attended HP1, the speakers blew out with every high pitched shrill noise, which, considering the number of 11 year olds present in the sound mix, were in quite high numbers, until they did something by the second half.

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It is my understanding that the same mixing team travels from venue to venue with Freer or whoever is conducting and the rest of the CineConcerts team

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I don't believe that at all. My HP1 concert and mix were good. My HP2 concert and mix were awful, same hall, different conductor and severe rehearsal/preparation issues.

 

God, I hope I can see HP3 live one day.

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I have heard there is a lack of rehearsal from instrumentalists I know in Pittsburgh who have performed in a few of these (E.T., ESB, Harry Potter, etc.). They also say that regardless it is one of the most magical moments of their life.

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I really don't understand the lack of rehearsal time. How difficult can it be to get the sheet music in time to musicians if they need to prepare everything for multiple venues anyway? The way the conductor on Maurizio's podcast explained it, it sounded to me like there's a concerted effort not to do it properly.

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1 minute ago, bollemanneke said:

I really don't understand the lack of rehearsal time. How difficult can it be to get the sheet music in time to musicians if they need to prepare everything for multiple venues anyway? The way the conductor on Maurizio's podcast explained it, it sounded to me like there's a concerted effort not to do it properly.

 

Rehearsal time is expensive. Paying up to one hundred musicians for several extra hours is not something you want to do if maximizing your profit is your main concern.

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18 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Beethoven is part of their core repertoire, so it requires less rehearsal to get right.

But that conductor basically said he sometimes had months for one symphony. Anyone with brains would realize HP1-3 are at least as complex as a Beethoven symphony.

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Re: the choir in the Quidditch cue -- I agree with crumbs that dropping the choir makes the Grim's looming image more eerie. That little section was chopped in half in the final cut (there's no giant "Double Trouble" statement anymore) so maybe there was something in the editing or length which Williams was responding to that we can't see anymore. And with that in mind it kind of "breaks" the music if choir suddenly comes and goes without that Double Trouble there to tie it back to the rest of the track.

 

Another reason they nixed it might be because choir is the trademark sound of the patronus and narratively it's out of place here.

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2 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

But that conductor basically said he sometimes had months for one symphony. Anyone with brains would realize HP1-3 are at least as complex as a Beethoven symphony.

 

Subscription concerts are part of the orchestra's day-to-day activities, while for LTP concerts someone hires them (usually).

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

Yep!  A Winter's Spell is especially awesome in concert, as you can hear it all very clearly, unlike the film

 

 

The Knight Bus music probably has the most instrumental changes I suppose, but it still sounds great

 

Yeah, not too many saxes in your average symphony orchestra, haha.

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1 minute ago, Skelly said:

(there's no giant "Double Trouble" statement anymore)

Do you mean the Sirius moti-ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

you just broke my brain

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It's the final appearance of the Double Trouble theme until the end of the film.  The day I realized that JW only used that theme in the first half of the film was like a "huh." moment for me

 

He'd do the same thing about 10 years later with Finn's theme in TFA

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wanna know subtle motif switcheroo... Peter Pettigrew's theme (or, what I guess was the standard "danger" motif before all the music editing made it his theme) is just the Nimbus 2000 Theme with the last two notes switched around. who knows if that's intentional or not.

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3 minutes ago, Holko said:

End of The Executioner!

 

Yea.... maybe the notes are the same (I'm no expert) but the cadence is different giving it a different feel than the early cues entirely.  It's even more altered than the Quidditch Match variation if it is considered a variation

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My theory is that it was just Williams acting like James Horner and copying himself, which he did in that case to save time, specially since he had little time to properly write a fleshed out cue. I don't buy that that cue was Ross copying AOTC, mainly because that cue is so much more than just Zam version 2.

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6 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

Yes, there are items missing, but hardly a deal-breaker when you consider what is included. Just:

  • an alternate opening for Buckbeak's Flight (this was replaced by an insert in the film and on album)

 

Wait? There’s a alternate, quieter opening for Buckbeak? This is one of my favorite cues but I’ve always felt that the drums in the intro are jarring in comparison to the rest of the tracks. I’d have loved, absolutely loved, for it to be included.

 

Also, to have Time Past without the ticking...

 

The dream!

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1 hour ago, rough cut said:

Wait? There’s a alternate, quieter opening for Buckbeak? This is one of my favorite cues but I’ve always felt that the drums in the intro are jarring in comparison to the rest of the tracks. I’d have loved, absolutely loved, for it to be included.

 

5 hours ago, Jay said:

I think the entire original opening is technically there in all version, you just can't hear it under the pounding drums.  it's not really like they replaced the original opening, just added a drum leadup on top of it all. 

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To clarify further: it's not like the 12 second new percussion intro replaced 12 seconds of an original opening; The first 10 seconds of the percussion intro just starts 10 seconds earlier than the cue originally did, so only from 0:10-0:12 are the first 2 seconds of the original cue buried under the new intro.

 

In other words, 0:12-end of the OST/LLL track = 0:02-end of the original cue

 

I know I've heard a mockup before of those opening 2 seconds back from when the sheet music leaked, but I didn't find it searching JWFan threads

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3 hours ago, Jay said:

I know I've heard a mockup before of those opening 2 seconds back from when the sheet music leaked, but I didn't find it searching JWFan threads


There’s really not much to it: the percussion ends on the downbeat of bar 3. Bars 3 and 4 (roughly 0:13-0:16) are an exact repeat of bars 1 and 2. It should be possible to edit a reasonable approximation of the original version if anyone wants to badly enough.

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53 minutes ago, crumbs said:

The film version of the end credits features more of that underlying music than the album version too. 


Oh, you’re right! The end credits Buckbeak’s Flight starts at the very beginning of the original version, though without a clean opening, of course.

 

I also just noticed in addition to the added cymbal crash, there’s also a few seconds of harp glissandos added here not present in the other version (and not in the written score).

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10 minutes ago, BrotherSound said:

I also just noticed in addition to the added cymbal crash, there’s also a few seconds of harp glissandos added here not present in the other version (and not in the written score).

 

Probably a podium change to "soup up" that introductory music, before the taiko drum insert was conceived?

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9 hours ago, Jay said:

To clarify further: it's not like the 12 second new percussion intro replaced 12 seconds of an original opening; The first 10 seconds of the percussion intro just starts 10 seconds earlier than the cue originally did, so only from 0:10-0:12 are the first 2 seconds of the original cue buried under the new intro.

 

In other words, 0:12-end of the OST/LLL track = 0:02-end of the original cue

 

I know I've heard a mockup before of those opening 2 seconds back from when the sheet music leaked, but I didn't find it searching JWFan threads

So, I wouldn't call a 2-second overlap "missing music", when it's basically all there.

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On 8/11/2020 at 1:30 AM, BrotherSound said:


There’s really not much to it: the percussion ends on the downbeat of bar 3. Bars 3 and 4 (roughly 0:13-0:16) are an exact repeat of bars 1 and 2. It should be possible to edit a reasonable approximation of the original version if anyone wants to badly enough.

 

Yeah, I might do that. I hate those drums.

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