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"A Gathering of Friends" Williams / Yo Yo Ma album with Pablo Sainz-Villegas & Jessica Zhou


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31 minutes ago, Thor said:

I have to admit the "Duo Concertante" is one of the pieces that I've had the most trouble getting into. It all seems so stark and detached. It was also a shock to the system at the time, because it was the first new Williams piece since INDY 4 (which was already kinda disappointing), and it cemented a different direction in his music that I've yet to come to terms with. But I aim to give it another chance. And another. And another.

 

The Duo Concertante premiered at Tanglewood a year before Indy 4 came out

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1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:


Last September, judging by the JKMS Instagram post on the first page of this thread

So that means Williams still lives a very private life. I mean nobody knew he would go to NY to records this, with the NY Phil. Which is quite amazing in these social media times.

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1 hour ago, Steve said:

So that means Williams still lives a very private life. I mean nobody knew he would go to NY to records this, with the NY Phil. Which is quite amazing in these social media times.

Exactly, now we can still dream of a recording sessions in London recently

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1 hour ago, artguy360 said:

The panning is kind of intense on the Schindler's List theme. The cello is almost exclusively on the far left. 

 

Otherwise, I like it. A small performance, very intimate and very well performed.

 

https://youtu.be/BqxAZoiZnQw

Agreed, a beautiful performance. Regarding the soundstage balance (or whatever the correct terminology is), that unfortunately doesn’t strike me as unusual. Doesn’t Sony always manage to  screw up on JW releases one way or another?

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On 01/04/2022 at 7:01 AM, TownerFan said:

 

Reports were saying it was a further revision than the one performed by Yo-Yo and JW in Houston in 2012.

The Houston Revision is still my favorite of the three I have heard.  I think he gets the opening and finale right, while mostly leaving the center alone (I think).

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10 hours ago, artguy360 said:

The panning is kind of intense on the Schindler's List theme. The cello is almost exclusively on the far left. 

 

Otherwise, I like it. A small performance, very intimate and very well performed.

 

https://youtu.be/BqxAZoiZnQw

 

From a quick review of the audio, the "panning" is caused by the cello going in and out of phase throughout the recording.  The lower-frequency notes of the cello are almost 180 degrees out of phase while the higher-frequency notes are not.

 

Here are two waveform examples of the lower-frequency notes, where you can see that the left channel (upper) is at a positive peak while the right channel (lower) is at a negative trough...

Spoiler

At around 17.9 seconds into the recording...

image.png

 

At around 48.17 seconds into the recording...

image.png

 

And here's one example of a higher-frequency cello note where the phase is more in-line between the two channels (peaks match with peaks, troughs match with troughs)...

Spoiler

At around 1:24.76 into the recording...

image.png

 

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6 minutes ago, thx99 said:

From a quick review of the audio, the "panning" is caused by the cello going in and out of phase throughout the recording.  The lower-frequency notes of the cello are almost 180 degrees out of phase while the higher-frequency notes are not.

It does sounds really weird when only the low notes seem to come in from the right. WTF happend there? Is this a problem from the microphone itself? Or caused by other mics i.e. from the violas capturing the same signal?  Otherwise it's such a nice recording.

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1 hour ago, MaxTheHouseelf said:

It does sounds really weird when only the low notes seem to come in from the right. WTF happend there? Is this a problem from the microphone itself? Or caused by other mics i.e. from the violas capturing the same signal?  Otherwise it's such a nice recording.

 

I'm guessing that the positions of the mics for Yo Yo Ma (assuming there were 2 mics) caused the phasing issue due their relative distances to the cello.  For particular frequencies (lower in this case), the distance between the mics was such that one mic was receiving the peak while the other was receiving the trough.  Or perhaps other mics for the orchestra, which were in close proximity to Yo Yo Ma, were contributing to this effect for the same reason.  I don't think this is a mixing issue, but we don't have a pure cello portion in this track that would help in identifying if the issue is isolated to Ma's mics.

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15 hours ago, Tom said:

Williams has lived a very, very long and full life.  It really is remarkable, and his career, influence, and legacy of productivity probably will not be fully appreciated for a generation or two.  

 

We all love him, but I suspect, down the road, just about all artists will bow to his unprecedented life of achievement.  

 

It is hard for me to believe that the artistic icon from my formative years in the late 1980s and 90s is still alive, still productive, and still my icon--(sorry, I got a bit dramatic and emotional there).  

 

Indeed, the longevity of JW is mind-boggling and really makes me contemplate the passage of time. He got his first Oscar just after my parents were born, and now -- decades later -- I'm scheduled to see him conduct in a couple weeks! Absolutely surreal to contemplate. 

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6 hours ago, Stu said:

Copland had his own "but they're all dead" anecdote that he told over and over in interview after interview.

 

Nah, that's his equivalent to Williams's anecdote about Leia's theme and now knowing they were siblings. ;)

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On 01/04/2022 at 3:37 PM, igger6 said:

 

I was/am hoping for new cello arrangements of literally anything in Williams' film catalog.  I really want—and wanted this to be, or hoped it would be in part—an "Across the Stars" equivalent for cello, basically equivalent to what Yo-Yo did with Morricone's music decades ago.  Imagine if Williams did soloist-and-orchestra arrangements of a non-overlapping set of film themes for cello.  Here, off the top of my head:

  • Love Theme from Superman
  • Fawkes the Phoenix
  • Love Theme from The Terminal (I can't post more than 50 words on JWFan without those being five of them)
  • Rose's Theme from The Last Jedi
  • Theme from Angela's Ashes
  • The Return from Jane Eyre
  • The Rise of Skywalker
  • Smee's Plan
  • Where Dreams Are Born
  • March of the Villains  (why not?)

I mean, obviously JW is entitled to sit on his duff, so good for him for doing anything, but this just seems so redundant: updated concerto recorded by the same guy who did it twentysome years ago, along with film pieces that already existed for cello (except maybe two of the Schindler pieces, which will probably be the highlights for me).  We should be grateful he's doing anything, but this is basically a skip for me.

 

Never change, JWFan.

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5 film pieces with cello played by Yo Yo Ma, possibly rearranged beyond the instrument switch, plus Highwood's Ghost, plus a newish Cello Concerto ? Ordered ! 

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2 hours ago, crumbs said:

Sony don't seem to understand the concept of milking something, the way DG does.

 

We all know they did jack shit with the Star Wars licence for two decades.

 

Oh, they milked it, by rereleasing the old SE albums.

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

those of you who signed up to get presale tickets for the Williams Vienna concerts are members, but I don't know if they send the magazine to members abroad):

They should. First they force foreigners interested in one particular concert into a subscription. Then they should also at least send the magazine to where ever the people live.

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2 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

Front and back of the latest edition of the Musikfreunde magazine, the monthly magazine of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, the association that built the Musikverein (and founded the Singverein choir, among other things; those of you who signed up to get presale tickets for the Williams Vienna concerts are members, but I don't know if they send the magazine to members abroad):

IMG_20220409_173114__01.jpg

 

Back in 2020 they did send it for a year. Right now, haven't received any issue yet.

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1 hour ago, artguy360 said:

IThe duet arrangement lacks the aching pain and beauty of the full orchestral original.

 

I think this might just be my favorite arrangement. I've always liked the solo guitar version on the soundtrack, but this takes that, improves upon it, and adds the cello, which is like tons of extra chocolate sauce. Williams needs to arrange all his themes for guitar and cello.

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