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David Newman adapting Leonard Bernstein - WEST SIDE STORY 2021


Jay

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  • 1 month later...

How many JWFanners have listened to this OST album multiple times?

Those who have, what are your thoughts on it?

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I listened to some highlights many times... and it's really really the first time I can listen to Bernstein's music and enjoy it.

 

The arrangements are great. The more latino taste is welcome. The "latin" side may always was in the writing of the musical, but it's the first time (at least for me) that it's arranged to actually "work".

  • Balcony Scene
  • I Feel Pretty
  • Maria
  • Somewhere
  • End Credits

So I think, I can say... I like it...

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I listened to it around 20 times now and find it really good. The arrangements are terrific.

The absolute plus of this new recording is Rachel Zegler performance, which I find far better than the original.

 

Another good point of the album is the Finale which comport far less blank and SFX letting more space too the music

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Today at 12pm (Noon) Pacific, David Newman will be the guest of a live online talk at ASMAC.org about his work on West Side Story. Scoring mixer Shawn Murphy will also be among the panelists.

 

Admission is $10 for general audience (it's free if you're an ASMAC member)

 

https://asmac.org/index.php/calendar/parties/012222-wss-dnewman

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This month's Film Score Monthly has a long interview with Newman here.

 

An interesting excerpt:

 

Quote

It was a lot of hard work for all of us in the music department. The movie was prepped and shot in 2019. Post-production started at the end of 2019. We still hadn’t recorded everything, we did a lot of post-recording. That’s when the conductor Gustavo Dudamel came in and we had to re-record everything anyway. And in March 2020, we were going to go back to New York and finish it with the New York Philharmonic. And boom—March 2020, New York shut down. We shut down for six months. So, to finish it was a nightmare. We had to do it in Los Angeles, although fortunately, we could use Dudamel’s orchestra, the L.A. Philharmonic. He’s the music director of that orchestra and they’re fantastic. But we could only have strings in the room at any one time because of COVID. It made post-production a nightmare. We started mixing the soundtrack and we couldn’t be together. We had to do it over Zoom and, finally, it let up and we could all get in the room to finish everything. It was just impossible to finish the movie via Zoom. Jeanine Tesori was in New York and I was here in L.A. I was in my home and Matt Sullivan was present at the mix. I would never go through that experience again. You can do lots of things but you cannot mix over Zoom.

 

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Hopefully that's a thing of the past now that vaccines and RAT tests are commonplace (well, at least in countries other than Australia)

 

I am curious how Williams intends to conduct at Sony for full orchestra though, whenever he starts Indy or Fabelmans sessions. Seems a little unsafe for him to wear a mask while conducting, for example.

 

Also not sure what type of air ventilation that stage would have, given the finely tuned acoustics of the space...

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

So now with a bunch of months behind us, how does JWFan feel about this score?

 

Prefer it over the original?  Prefer the original over it?  Somewhere in between?

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I really enjoy the recording of the music, it is certainly of very high standard. It certainly made me investigate some older records of the material. While I can't say that I love every moment if Bernstein's musical, the craft behind the writing is quite staggering. Way beyond the capabilities of most songwriters. As for Spielberg's film, it is absolutely fine. But I find it struggling at times between its realism and the theatricality. Many big screen musical adaptations that take that approach emd up in that position (with the possible exception of Chicago). There's just something about the form that doesn't translate well from stage.

 

Karol

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