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What are your favorite JW brass chorale moments?


artguy360

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One JW signature is his use of brass chorale, especially towards the end of scores, for moments of maximum emotion, sometimes as a kind of "summing it all up" conclusive theme statement. That said, what are your favorite JW brass chorale moments?

 

Listening to The Patriot soundtrack, while not my favorite, this brief brass moment really hit me at 5:24.

 

YouTube link here

https://youtu.be/REUusj4nxh4

 

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All of them. Literally. When Williams goes into chorale territory, you know it's gonna be gold.  Especially if there's enough room sound and/or artificial reverb to allow each chord to bloom with a beautiful (but not distracting) tail.

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I am just wondering to what extent these brass "chorales" and their harmonies contain common elements of Christian church music (including gospels) and whether JW takes a formal approach using elements from a musicologically defined catalogue or whether it works more associative and random.

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45 minutes ago, BB-8 said:

I am just wondering to what extent these brass "chorales" and their harmonies contain common elements of Christian church music (including gospels) and whether JW takes a formal approach using elements from a musicologically defined catalogue or whether it works more associative and random.

I could definitely see above examples from Lincoln or Saving Private Ryan having some foundation in various Christian traditions. But I suppose it's hard to ever know how much of those sounds are already engrained through in Williams head and "under his fingers" (so to speak), or actually researched specifically for films. I do know he had mentioned looking into some hymnals for Lincoln.

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On 11/4/2023 at 11:49 PM, artguy360 said:

One JW signature is his use of brass chorale, especially towards the end of scores, for moments of maximum emotion, sometimes as a kind of "summing it all up" conclusive theme statement. That said, what are your favorite JW brass chorale moments?

 

Listening to The Patriot soundtrack, while not my favorite, this brief brass moment really hit me at 5:24.

 

YouTube link here

https://youtu.be/REUusj4nxh4

 

Forget the brass chorale (which is lovely, to be sure)— what about the flute chorale at 2:52?? If that isn’t the most embouchure-destroying writing for flutes in Hollywood scoring history, I can’t imagine what would be. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/04/2023 at 9:20 PM, D_nev said:

I've always loved this moment from SPR

 

 

 

That's the one that instantly comes to my mind ! Sheer beauty.

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Some great stuff in Saving Private Ryan. The Nixon example just above me is great. Recently, Obi-Wan theme. Too many examples to mention.

 

Karol

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