The most challenging cue for an orchestra?

[APBez 11]

What do we think might be the most challenging JW cue for an orchestra - any orchestra - to perform? From a technical standpoint, I'm, musically illiterate so wonder...

Cheers,

Andrew

[robthehand 3]

Dunno - "The Asteroid Field" was listed in the liner notes as requiring virtuoso playing...

[Jeshopk 8]

My vote goes for "Mine Cart Chase" from Temple of Doom

[MSM 126]

Category B5. and B6. (according to my classification). Action music it is.

[Trumpeteer 302]

I would imagine the strings had a lot of sore shoulders after "Escape from Cloud City." That four-note ostinato must be difficult.

[MSM 126]

Difficulties come from rhytm indeed and from fast and busy notes (e.g. Hedwig's Theme is extremely difficult to play for strings).

[SturgisPodmore 0]

Difficulties come from rhytm indeed and from fast and busy notes (e.g. Hedwig's Theme is extremely difficult to play for strings).

But extremely delicious to hear.

~Sturgis

[Composer_Fan 2]

I've never been able to comprehend how a string player plays Hedwigs Theme. It's hard enough on keyboard...

[SturgisPodmore 0]

I'm assuming we mean the 16th-notes in the Nimbus 2000 section? And the "swirling" strings at the beginning?

~Sturgis

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Well it's quite difficult to play the opening notes on the strings as well.

[QMM 4]

Witches of Eastwick

them string parts be bitches!

[SturgisPodmore 0]

~Sturgis

[Composer_Fan 2]

I was just listening to The Mission, and there's this one part where the the strings have the melody and the trumpets are doing this crazy, fast, same note thing. As you can tell, I don't quite know the term to describe this part, so I'm stuck with adjectives like "crazy, fast, and same-note"....

Anyways, it sounds difficult.

[ridan 0]

Not JW, but "Burly Brawl," Don Davis' unused cue from the Matrix Reloaded scene when Neo fights Smith+.

The string are incredibly rapid.

[QMM 4]

I was just listening to The Mission, and there's this one part where the the strings have the melody and the trumpets are doing this crazy, fast, same note thing.  As you can tell, I don't quite know the term to describe this part, so I'm stuck with adjectives like "crazy, fast, and same-note"....  

Anyways, it sounds difficult.

I'm guessing that they're double-tongue-ing

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

I was just listening to The Mission, and there's this one part where the the strings have the melody and the trumpets are doing this crazy, fast, same note thing. As you can tell, I don't quite know the term to describe this part, so I'm stuck with adjectives like "crazy, fast, and same-note"....  

To your credit (and perhaps mine as well), I know what part you're talking about.

Ray Barnsbury

[Molaram 0]

I always have been impressed by the middle section of the concert arangement of Imperial March. The way the flutes tripple tounge that along with the srtings is incredible.

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

As Hedwig's Theme was the first piece of JW/film score music I listened to over and over I assumed that all music required bloody fast string runs in the background, and consequently my first compositions mimicked this (dreadfully, as I only used 2 kinds of scales - major and minor. Forget about arpeggios). How ignorant I was then. Incidentally, I never understood how on earth the celesta player could play that, or how John could when playing it.

[Jim Ware 526]

Not JW, but "Burly Brawl," Don Davis' unused cue from the Matrix Reloaded scene when Neo fights Smith+.

The string are incredibly rapid.

That cue is completely bonkers. There's a terrifying excerpt from the conductor's score in an old issue of Music from the Movies.

[Trent B 337]

I can't really think of any cues right now. I know that most of the fast pace cues can be pretty difficult for any orchestra.

Well I'm listening to the "Leavithan Battle" from Atlantis by James Newton Howard. Seems that would be a bit diffcult in some areas of the cue.

[Saxbabe 28]

There is a site http://www.moviebrass.com that is interesting, made by a bass trombone player who played on many big scores (Marcel Schot), and there are a lot of pictures from scoring sessions and info about top movie brass players. Pic of Atlantis brass section and JNH

I've read before that James Newton Howard's Waterworld was real murder on the brass. Fun murder though.

Several of JNH's scores sound very taxing on the brass, due to his love of action writing of fast and large interval jumps dipping into the extreme high regions of the instrument (and at extreme all out volume). Especially the horn!

His Outbreak - "They're Coming", the end section of that cue must have had the horn players going nuts. Also Dinosaur - "The Carnotaur Attack". Wow, crazy. Trilling, growling horns, and very high.

A couple of other scores that sound pretty difficult are Goldsmith's First Knight and Silvestri's Van Helsing. And certainly most of Elliot Goldenthal's scores.

There are many others, that's something I love about movie scores, they are really a challenge to the orchestra.

For JW - whew, his string/woodwind stuff is complex, the brass is intricate, and the orchestra must have a great sense of time.

When our local orchestra played "Raiders March" two friends of mine in the horn section said it was a real workout. His action cues especially, also something like "Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra", if one section drags, that could really go awry.

JW loves fugal writing, so it requires that the players indivdually know where their place is in the whole mix (for the non-initiated, a fugue is where a melody starts, and then he begins it again a second later in another instrument, they "hand it off" across the orchestra, one example, Jaws - "Shark Cage Fugue")

Greta

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

Escape/Chase/Goodbye. There's the length, the complexity. In fact they never got it really right, so - this is a well-known story I think - Spielberg let Williams play the entire cue without the film to sync it to and just the orchestra to take his mind away from syncing and then later edited the film where necessary to the orchestra's final performance.

[chs058 0]

Greta, I have (parts) of First Knight score in front of me, where is that difficult? We will play that piece this winter. I have Never surrender, Arthur's farewell, Camelot, Promise me (=Main Title/End credits) and Arthur's fanfare.

I agree with Hedwig's Theme, Asteroid field and Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra, we had problems playing those...

we also skipped socerer's apprentice due to difficulties and played Batman suite instead

I think there are different "problems"

1. technical problems of individual players

2. rhytmic problems of playing together

3. intonation problems

[batmanand 0]

Many of the action music in, eg, SW Ep I, III, V, VI, JP, MR etc must be incredibly hard to keep the whole orchestra in time and playing notes clearly and singularly.

"Let There Be Light" from CEOTK requires virtuoso skill; at a JW concert I was at, the strings (of the LSO, not some school orchestra) were straining to keep the notes in time and tune.

Parts of "Battle of the Heroes" require amazing skill from the brass just to keep up with the whole thing.

In "Fighting the Destroyer Droids" (Episode I UE), there is a whole section where the brass "plays like strings" (ie plays music that is normally scored for strings, or at least that is how it sounds). That must be HARD.

In "Mastadge Drag" from Arnold's Stargate (one of my favourite scores at the moment), the strings play remarkably complex rhythmic parts.

[Richard Penna 3,688]

I've been listening a lot recently to the following cues, which I can barely imagine someone playing:

The Stargate Opens (also one of my favourite scores at the moment) has some really layered & fast string parts towards the end.

Lift Off & Escape to Paradise (especially the string theme at 0.38 & 1.13) from Chicken Run must be murder on the string section.

Mark Mancina's theme to Twister, and especially the opening track 'Wheatfield' has some very fast string parts.

Quidditch, Third Year, and the string bit from 2.19-2.23 sounds very complex.

[pixie_twinkle 48]

My vote goes for "Mine Cart Chase" from Temple of Doom

I completely agree. The wind writing in Mine Cart Chase is incredibly difficult, made all the more so by the fact that it is so precise, all in unison, and is completely exposed. After playing this section the wind players need surgery to get their tongues removed from their instruments!

The string writing in Witches Dance has also been mentioned. The ensemble writing there is certainly challenging, but the solo sections aren't as difficult as the soloist on the soundtrack makes it sound. I wish those sections could have been recorded with a better soloist.

[Jacck 23]

My vote goes for "Mine Cart Chase" from Temple of Doom

My god yes, I think I have to agree with you LOL

That cue is CRAZY

[TVG 0]

Hey,

I play the horn. The JW music for horn is very beautiful, but not that difficult. Hardest part I ever had to play was the fire storm from independence day.

High, fast, loud...hard

[ChrisAfonso 186]

Horn players must really have a ball playing Goldenthal

[dooku77 0]

Chase through coruscant, Anderton Runs and Attack on the Car