Popular Post Marian Schedenig 8,211 Posted September 25, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted September 25, 2022 Yesterday Alan Menken finally received his Max Steiner award in what was originally going to be the 2020 Hollywood in Vienna gala concert, until it got postponed twice by one year each due to the pandemic. Once again, the entire programme was dedicated exclusively to Menken compositions, with the exception of Broughton's opening fanfare and the traditional final Gone With the Wind encore. The programme consisted of: Overture & Be Our Guest (from Beauty and the Beast, but with "funny" modified lyrics to fit the evening) Bless Our Show (from Sister Act - the musical; I keep forgetting Menken was involved with that) Enchanted - Suite Suite & I See the Light (Tangled) Home on the Range - Suite* Go the Distance & Gospel Medley (Hercules) Intro & Friend Like Me A Whole New World Prince Ali Proud of Your Boy(all from Aladddin) Pocahontas - Suite* The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Suite The Little Mermaid - Suite* Under the Sea (same) Something There Suite* (Beauty and the Beast) Encores: How Does a Moment Last Forever (Beauty and the Beast) Suddenly Seymour (Little Shop of Horrors) Some of the suites included songs (I've marked those with an asterisk). Most importantly, this meant that Pocahontas included Colors of the Wind, and The Little Mermaid included Poor Unfortunate Soulds (brilliantly performed by Drew Sarich) and Part of Your World. Sadly, some were purely instrumental; I usually find Menken's underscore nice enough, but mostly secondary to the songs, so I'd usually rather have just the songs instead. Tangled is the one where I find the actual score more interesting than usually, but sadly they didn't include the standout piece (Kingdom Dance) in the suite. Hunchback's dramatic Orff-Requiem finale I always found good but overrated, and it's long… I would have preferred the dramatic opening song/score, or Heaven's Light & Hellfire. The Beauty and the Beast suite ended with the titular song - but sadly with an arrangement of the pop version that started out as a duet and ended up involving the entire ensemble. The only bits I didn't know were Sister Act and Home on the Range, and at least without context it was rather grotesquely eccentric. How Does a Moment Last Forever was performed by Menken himself at the piano, after receiving the Steiner award. The ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester (as usual) was conducted by Michael Kosarin (co-composer, arranger, and conductor for many Menken projects since Hercules - the programme booklet claims that their first collaboration was when he allegedly conducted Pocahontas, but neither the CD booklet nor IMDb corroborate that he was involved with that at all). The cast was made up of Broadway and West End singers, many of whom originated the stage versions of the songs the performed - much better than my initial fear that they would cast Austrian/German musical singers (or even perform the German versions of the songs). Sounds great so far? It probably could have been, but Hollywood in Vienna has been persistent in making each concert bigger and more EPIC! than the previous one. What started out with a first rate concert conducted by John Mauceri (with music by Korngold, Williams, and Goldsmith, among others) has long since become a big spectacle with a click-tracked, amplified orchestra and choir that puts more emphasis on the projections, light show, "funny" moderators, and overall EPICness than the actual music. Even then this year's programme could have fared reasonably well, but for most of it, the mix was a mess. Even when the orchestra wasn't mixed so loudly as to drown out the singers, the balance was off (because the voice came from the overhead speakers, while the massive orchestra came, when not over-mixed, primarily from the stage). But mostly, everything was turned up to 11 (orchestra, soloists, choir), and when the percussion kicked in, all you could really hear was drums and a massive wall of sound. I was very much looking forward to the gospel stuff from Hercules (possibly the most ingenious thing Menken has done), but for much of it I could only make out the drums and the lower alto (?) muse. In retrospect, I Won't Say (I'm In Love) would probably have worked much better. There was a relatively brief stretch - from Pocahontas to The Little Mermaid - where the mix (or perhaps the arrangements) was more tempered, and that part of the concert was really quite good (although as I mentioned earlier, not my favourite selection for Hunchback). Sadly, everything was turned up to 11 for an EPIC version of Under the Sea. Ending the official part of the programme with an overproduced, full cast arrangement of the pop version of Beauty and the Beast kind of sums up everything that's wrong (as far as I'm concerned, or from what I expect from a *music* concert as opposed to an epic entertainment spectacle) with the format. Ultimately, the cast was probably first rate, and the performances mostly very fine (I See the Light felt somehow lacking in emotion to me, which may well be attributable to the strict click track), but the overall result was a rather sad, if loud, mess. It'll probably fare much better in a recorded version (I assume a Blu-ray release will be coming), and those who only experience it in that form will probably not even understand much of my criticism. During her speech at the end of the concert, producer Sandra Tomek mentioned that the future is unclear and they don't yet know if there will be another Hollywood in Vienna. I don't know if that is because of lack of funding or for artistic reasons, but we (the traditional group of friends who usually meet up at this (and other film music) concerts) speculated before the concert what they might come up with next, and couldn't think of anything, because after Zimmer and Menken, it seems like they've almost exhausted the big crowd pleasers that can work in this extravagant format (and I can't see them return to a more settled concert setting). My only idea was an all-Marvel programme, which would probably be the first time I decide to skip the concert. Bespin, Drawgoon, Henry Sítrónu and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bespin 8,484 Posted September 25, 2022 Share Posted September 25, 2022 Nice program! A congrats to Mr. Menken, I like him very much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephariel 451 Posted September 25, 2022 Share Posted September 25, 2022 "During her speech at the end of the concert, producer Sandra Tomek mentioned that the future is unclear and they don't yet know if there will be another Hollywood in Vienna. I don't know if that is because of lack of funding or for artistic reasons, but we (the traditional group of friends who usually meet up at this (and other film music) concerts) speculated before the concert what they might come up with next, and couldn't think of anything, because after Zimmer and Menken, it seems like they've almost exhausted the big crowd pleasers that can work in this extravagant format." They got to at least do Williams right? Williams music is crowd pleasing and can work with a more spectacular light show. In general, I love their concerts and hope they don't go away. I haven't seen Yared's concert, and Desplat's one was the only one I couldn't finished, but the good frequently outweighed the bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,211 Posted September 26, 2022 Author Share Posted September 26, 2022 10 hours ago, Mephariel said: They got to at least do Williams right? Williams music is crowd pleasing and can work with a more spectacular light show. In general, I love their concerts and hope they don't go away. I haven't seen Yared's concert, and Desplat's one was the only one I couldn't finished, but the good frequently outweighed the bad. Supposedly they repeatedly tried to get him, but he declined. I fully understand why, because in the end he got to conduct two (times two) proper concerts instead of multimedia shows with little room for artistic highlights. The Yared concert (which I had almost forgotten about) was unusual because it mostly went against the format's multimedia show tendencies - and ended up being one of their best concerts for it (though I'll argue that even there a "normal" concert with the music properly presented without a click and without amplification, light show, and irrelevant projections, would have been better still). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TownerFan 4,983 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 17 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said: Sounds great so far? It probably could have been, but Hollywood in Vienna has been persistent in making each concert bigger and more EPIC! than the previous one. What started out with a first rate concert conducted by John Mauceri (with music by Korngold, Williams, and Goldsmith, among others) has long since become a big spectacle with a click-tracked, amplified orchestra and choir that puts more emphasis on the projections, light show, "funny" moderators, and overall EPICness than the actual music. That's an issue inherent with a lot of these European film music festivals that are being done since more than a decade now, where the goal seems to create these large-crowd events with lots of spectacle, lights and glitz added, but where absurdly the musical component goes to the background rather than remaining to the forefront. I think perhaps a more toned-down approach would do a better service to the actual appreciation of the music, i.e. focusing on 2 or 3 well curated symphonic programs featuring great film music (including stuff that's not too ubiquitous) and adding a few collateral events such as public Q&As with composers and showing of films. But again, that's not something that can draw large crowds. 17 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said: During her speech at the end of the concert, producer Sandra Tomek mentioned that the future is unclear and they don't yet know if there will be another Hollywood in Vienna. I don't know if that is because of lack of funding or for artistic reasons, but we (the traditional group of friends who usually meet up at this (and other film music) concerts) speculated before the concert what they might come up with next, and couldn't think of anything, because after Zimmer and Menken, it seems like they've almost exhausted the big crowd pleasers that can work in this extravagant format (and I can't see them return to a more settled concert setting). My only idea was an all-Marvel programme, which would probably be the first time I decide to skip the concert. Besides the fact that they've ran out of big crowd-pleasing names to invite as you said, I think the other inherent (and somehow depressing) issue is that contemporary film music has very little to offer in terms of standard symphonic concert presentation, unless they will go into the film-with-orchestra format that's being done by everyone else. Going back in time and putting up concerts of classic film music probably wouldn't draw a lot of people, as current film music nerds don't care much about Golden and Silver Age composers. So I fear they've ran out of steam and that what was born as a celebration of classic Hollywood film music as conceived by the emigré composers doesn't make sense anymore in this current world of film music aficionados. Marian Schedenig 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,211 Posted September 26, 2022 Author Share Posted September 26, 2022 6 hours ago, TownerFan said: unless they will go into the film-with-orchestra format that's being done by everyone else. The Konzerthaus has its annual cycle of LTP concerts that actually predates Hollywood in Vienna by many years. Sadly, it's the polar opposite of that format, in a way, in that it goes to extremes to ensure a certain high brow justification at the expense of what lies at the heart of (good) film music: The constructive coexistence of film and music. Instead, they mostly focus on newly composed avant-garde scores for respectable films. They do always include a Chaplin film with its original score - usually Modern Times, without ever crediting David Raksin (which I consider a disqualification for a music concert at a major concert hall). I once heard Frank Strobel conduct a Carl Davis score for some film I can't recall now (something by Preminger, I believe?) that was a "proper" film score, and one highlight was Michael Nyman and his Michael Nyman Band performing his Vertov scores live to picture (prefaced by a 30 minute set of Nyman classics). They've also done Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible (once as a series of highlights and once the full film), and I believe Alexander Nevsky. But the rest is usually newly composed music for classic silent films that seem to try their utmost to be anything but film music - meaning that the music often feels like it's not written to the support the film, not even by scoring *against* the visuals (a perfectly valid and usual approach in "normal" film scoring), but they just don't fit. I've cited my experience with Metropolis before, accompanied by a very abstract score (I forget the composer) that plastered the entire film with music so unrelated that I was never sure if the timing wasn't off by half a scene (very calm music during some dramatic sequences, sudden fortissimo outbursts in the middle of scenes where nothing of note happens), but left the dramatic climax entirely unscored. I just noticed that they have indeed also performed Huppertz' score once (I'm now sad I missed that), so it's not always bad, but there's a lot more they could do with the format to acknowledge the existing art form of film music rather than always forcefully reinventing it to be something that focuses more on distancing itself as far as possible from "commercial" film music than fulfilling its function as *film* music in any way. Fabulin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Sítrónu 494 Posted September 27, 2022 Share Posted September 27, 2022 Thanks for your report. I went to see James Horner in 2013… and yes, the EPICness was hideous. They‘ve played David Arnold‘s iD4-Suite in the first half with a projection of space ship shadows over Vienna… 😖 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GerateWohl 4,373 Posted September 27, 2022 Share Posted September 27, 2022 That reminds me of that "Disney in Concert" show at the Waldbühne in Berlin, which was mostly fine. But the presenter obviously thought, that this was all just about the songs, so he annoyingly kept talking over the instrumental parts, intros and overtures. Fabulin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post JNHFan2000 2,969 Posted October 11, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted October 11, 2022 The concert is on YouTube. Don't know if it will be deleted I felt every segment had strong points. The orchestra, choir and soloist all did an amazing job. A Whole New World and the instrumental songs from Aladdin were a standout. As were Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Tangled & Pocahontas. My favorite part though was the Hercules segment. I love gospel and this was a terrific performance. 2 nitpicks. How do you have Susan Egan at the concert singing and not add I Won't Say I'm In Love to the setlist. Don't get it. Shame there was nothing from Enchanted Gabriel Bezerra, Once, Muad'Dib and 2 others 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DemonStar 57 Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 5 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said: The concert is on YouTube. Don't know if it will be deleted I felt every segment had strong points. The orchestra, choir and soloist all did an amazing job. A Whole New World and the instrumental songs from Aladdin were a standout. As were Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Tangled & Pocahontas. My favorite part though was the Hercules segment. I love gospel and this was a terrific performance. 2 nitpicks. How do you have Susan Egan at the concert singing and not add I Won't Say I'm In Love to the setlist. Don't get it. Shame there was nothing from Enchanted This was totally amazing. Thank you so much for sharing! I really loved the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast suites in particular. And yes, it would have been great if Enchanted (especially the track "Storybook Ending") had been performed live too. JNHFan2000 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,211 Posted October 11, 2022 Author Share Posted October 11, 2022 11 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said: The concert is on YouTube. Don't know if it will be deleted I've only watched the first 20 minutes in the background while browsing the forum, but… this sounds like an ENTIRELY different concert compared to how it sounded live. I figured it could be much better in a somewhat reasonably mixed recording, but it's actually much, much better. I wonder if the mix of the recording is totally different from the live mix, or if the live version maybe also sounded better on the expensive seats and the amplification setup was just shitty for the upper ranks (which still isn't much of an excuse, because the Konzerthaussaal usually sounds perfectly fine there). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephariel 451 Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said: I've only watched the first 20 minutes in the background while browsing the forum, but… this sounds like an ENTIRELY different concert compared to how it sounded live. I figured it could be much better in a somewhat reasonably mixed recording, but it's actually much, much better. I wonder if the mix of the recording is totally different from the live mix, or if the live version maybe also sounded better on the expensive seats and the amplification setup was just shitty for the upper ranks (which still isn't much of an excuse, because the Konzerthaussaal usually sounds perfectly fine there). Did you attend the previous concerts (Yared, Zimmer, Desplat, Elfman)? Were they the same quality? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,211 Posted October 12, 2022 Author Share Posted October 12, 2022 17 hours ago, Mephariel said: Did you attend the previous concerts (Yared, Zimmer, Desplat, Elfman)? Were they the same quality? I've been there every year since the first day. The first concert was excellent, the next few were still really good, but as I mentioned above, the whole thing has since become a franchise that focuses more and more on spectacle and epicness rather than the actual music or artistry. Yared was a notable exception - really good, and so different from what the concept turned into that I keep forgetting it even happened. For Zimmer, the show matched the musical content, which I was mostly not a fan of, to put it mildly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DangerMotif 1,038 Posted October 13, 2022 Share Posted October 13, 2022 Regardless of what you think of him Giacchino would definitely be a big draw and deserving, did Newman get one? Menken doesn’t interest me in the slightest. JNHFan2000 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JNHFan2000 2,969 Posted October 14, 2022 Share Posted October 14, 2022 I've been watching some of the other concerts that are on YouTube over the last few days. They are all outstanding. I do hope they continue. If they do I would love to see a concert of the following composers some day: Michael Giacchino John Powell Patrick Doyle Thomas Newman (he really deserves an award like this) John Williams (doubt he would attend) Bruce Broughton John Debney Bear McCreary Abel Korzeniowski Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,211 Posted October 14, 2022 Author Share Posted October 14, 2022 Broughton was a regular guest during the early years. He composed the signature fanfare and contributed a lot to the symposium. I guess he either lost interest when the musical quality declined, or they dropped him because he's not famous enough. Doyle was supposed to attend once (I forget for which programme, but it was around year 3-4 I think), but cancelled on short notice and was never announced again. Williams was supposedly asked again and again and refused. He then came over twice to conduct the Wiener Philharmoniker. The man has taste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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