JW' film music that should be played by Classical Music Elite

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

19 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I haven't heard the Matrix symphony.

 

It's an enjoyable set of suites but, much like LOTR Symphony, it's broadly score cues linked together for each of the three films. However, it's a good listen.

 

19 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

The LOTR "symphony" is misnamed, and as far as I remember was arranged not by Shore himself but, at least in part I believe, by John Mauceri? I think it's a poor arrangement, because it mostly cuts & pastes highlights and meandering underscore that doesn't hold up all that well in concert. It's certainly the right approach for these scores, because standalone themes would need entirely new arrangements to be presentable in concert. But I find the execution lacking.

While I wouldn't go as far to say I think it's a poor arrangement, it's very far from what would be considered a symphony - it's much more of a meandering tone poem. I saw the FOTR part performed live and really enjoyed it, but it doesn't function much beyond being cues with a little connective material written so there aren't breaks. If you compare the Symphony with, say, the Silva Screen's 2CD LOTR album which provides selections from all three scores, the musical choices aren't much different only Silva just plays each cue separately whereas the Symphony ties them into longer suites (2 movements per score).

 

I had rather hoped that Shore would rework the material into a much more coherent concert work (like Vaughan Williams did) but evidently either didn't consider it or didn't think it would be an effective way to treat the material, either of which are fair. The way themes and motifs are presented in a score - or, say, a Wagner opera - don't necessarily lend themselves to symphonic development, especially when you have so many themes to develop.

 

However, I would agree that the slight issue with JW's concert arrangements is that they are all 4 to 6 minute miniatures that work as developments of particular key themes or material. It might sound silly, but you notice how much more often you end up clapping at a film music concert compared to classical as the audience claps after every piece which means they can be somewhat disjointed as by the time you're wrapped up in Star Wars or Jurassic Park or whatever, it's over and onto the next work. I'm sure there's scope to write some great extended suites which could function as tone poems, but JW is unlikely to be the one for his own material. I do find it a bit of a shame he never really played longer continuous passages from his scores; Journey to the Island, for example, is remarkably coherent as written and would perhaps only need a little tweaking here or there for the concert hall. His JP suite is fine enough, but Journey benefits from a strong narrative structure as well as including both of the main themes and plenty of other interesting material. As I've said before, I don't understand why he cut out the soaring presentation of the main theme in his Adventures on Earth concert arrangement, the full 15 minutes is well worth hearing, ditto a longer CE3K suite...