JOHN WILLIAMS

First time I heard the Star Wars theme live it was conducted by Ron Goodwin, a corking rendition too if I remember right!?

Sounds like an absolutely AMAZING concert! Thanks for the stories and reviews. I'm green with envy.

But why OH WHY didn't you hook up after the concert as well? If this was a weekend, it would be the PERFECT chance to hook up and talk film music and everything else over a few beers!

We did before the concert. Lunch and a couple of drinks.

And we will meet up Saturday as well, before (with dinner and wine!) and after the World Soundtrack Awards. No anti-socialites here, we do meet!

You can join us next time Eric, just let us know where you will be or where you arrive.

someone put some parts online from the concert...

http://www.youtube.com/user/ganzpopp

I'm going to chime in here with some comments of my own on the John Williams concert in Ghent. First of all, I thought the programme was rather good, much better than I had expected (I thought all the selections would be from his blockbuster films, but not so.) Personally, I would have added a bit more from his even lesser known scores (for the grand public, that is) like The Eiger Sanction or The Long Goodbye, etc., but I suppose that the involvement of Williams himself (which was probably not much more than suggesting a few things and greenlighting the thing, though) would have made that rather more difficult. The only 'blockbuster' item that I personally found lacking was, well, not Superman, but "Parade of the Slave Children".

All the selections that were played were the usual concert suites from these scores (which may have sounded new to most people, but I think it's these suites he also conducts himself in the US).

- Hook - Flight to Neverland: the usual suite, not so fluid opening seconds but the rest was great. I think it's the same suite as can be found on the Williams on Williams album.
- Far & Away: it's obvious the orchestra wasn't always in unison on this one but nevertheless great suite to hear live.
- The Terminal: the album version. I know this piece like the back of my hand, having played the accompaniment on piano myself once, and I must disagree with all the praise for the soloist. He played decent enough, sure, but he lacked a kind of verve or panache, perhaps, or even just pace, and wasn't entirely up to the real speed of the thing (the performance slowed down on occasions). He also made the occasional error, the most notable being in the final measures of the piece. At this kind of musical/professional level, I'd personally expect the soloist's performance to be flawless (and certainly without obvious mistakes).
- Memoirs from a Geisha: the usual (great!) concert suite, sadly not available on CD. This has two versions if I'm not mistaken (diff. in orchestration) - it was the one with the flute opening the theme rather than the cello.
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind: surely one of the best performances of the evening. This might be the piece that I most enjoyed, and hearing this live is a blast. I can't remember if this was the long nine-/ten-minute suite, or the shorter 4-/5-minute one. (I think the latter.)
- 1941 - March: never thought I'd be hearing this in concert! This was just plain fun, and pieces like this, along with the more atonal writing like Close Encounters, show Brossé at his best.
- Schindler’s List: I was a bit disappointed that they played the theme, because the real highlight of this score is "Remembrances", I think. Difficult piece to live up to the expectations - often the solo violists will be obnoxious in their sound and speed; but the soloist was really good. His violin also had a really warm and moving sound. If I have one caveat, it would be that near the latter part of the piece, he tried a bit tóó hard to be musical - he tried to play with feeling on every note. Don't get me wrong, I love how he plays something musically, but you got to realize that there's an orchestra and there are measures behind it as well. Anyway, very nice performance.
- Jaws: too slow, unfortunately. This was perhaps an artistic choice - because Brossé usually tries to keep the tempo high enough. Too bad, because the performance itself was good.
- E.T. - Flying Theme: nice performance, nothing spectacular, but great to hear this live for sure.

- The Raiders March: my favourite blockbuster theme of his, so no complaints here. Makes for a great concert piece, no matter how many times you heard it.
- The Patriot: very run-of-the-mill/generic Williams score, so I'd rather they played something else (like Seven Years in Tibet or so). Decent enough performance. I don't believe this suite is available somewhere.
- Saving Private Ryan - Hymn to the Fallen: the first time we heard the choir. This is one of my favourite pieces, and very impressive to hear live. The choirs were all rather good on all the pieces.
- Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone - Harry’s Wondrous World: the Harry Potter pieces were the best evidence that this orchestra has really improved. They did a Harry Potter concert a few years back in Ostend, and there the performances were sometimes quite bad (especially the brass section).
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - The Knight Bus: again, much clearer and better performance than a few years back. Really fun to hear this extended concert arrangement live.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Double Trouble: they had to drop this in Ostend (I think because they had no choir?), so I was really looking forward to this concert arrangement. Good performance from choir and orchestra. Both this arrangement and the last piece are available on Silva's 2-CD compilation of the series.
- Home Alone: sadly, they only played "Somewhere in my Memory", which is a piece that's really well known, if I'm not mistaken, in the U.S., but not really over here, and they didn't include the wonderful main title of the film, which is for me the real highlight of these scores.
- Amistad - Dry your Tears: the first choral statement of the theme was by the children's choir (an artistic choice, I guess, since they had that choir available for "Double Trouble" anyway?). The intention was good for sure (nice variation), but unfortunately the children were really out of tone on this one. It became soon apparent it wasn't really written for children's choir, I suppose. Rather strange orchestral opening as well (I guess they lacked some of the percussion, and tried to solve it partly through the piano, but it didn't really sound full-fledged.) The rest was great though. It was the concert version of the theme. I think this is available on the Silva compilation, but I might be mistaken.
- Star Wars - Theme: great to hear live. Like in the earlier open-air concert in Ghent this summer, Brossé really keeps up the tempo on this one, gets as much dynamics as possible out of the orchestra.
- Revenge of the Sith - Battle of the Heroes: again, the first few measures perhaps not dynamic enough, but overall chilling performance. The speakers were too loud during the whole evening (esp. second half), and this became really apparent especially during these loud pieces from Star Wars.
- Attack of the Clones - Across the Stars: nice performance, but why did they cut this piece short? It really didn't have any ending at all, the end came out of the blue. Really strange, and a pity.
- The Phantom Menace - Duel of the Fates: what a blast; what a terrific ending to the programme.

Encores:
- The Empire Strikes Back - The Imperial March: a bit clumsy introduction by the presenters, but nice addition.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark - Raiders March: too bad they chose a piece they already played. Temple of Doom would have fit in nicely. But hearing this twice is better than not at all.

Organisation-wise, there's always something that's wrong with the Ghent filmfestival's concerts, in my experience. We had really good seats - par terre, almost in the middle, but I presume for the people in the stands, the sound can't have been good at all. Of course that's a structural problem (there's no venue in Belgium large enough for concerts like this and The Lord of the Rings, etc., is there?). But why not spread it over several days in smaller concert venues...? Also, there were problems with the speakers (ideally, of course, you don't need speakers at a concert with a symphonic orchestra): static in a few instances, mixed too loud esp. in the second half, etc. All respect for the daunting organisation of such an event, but things like this shouldn't happen. (Especially after problems with the mixing/speakers during the entire first half of The Lord of the Rings concert).
For us personally, however, the worst thing, this time, were the two photographers that were taking pictures during the whole first part of the concert - taking like hundred photographs of the same orchestra. They were just clicking away the whole time, and preferably even during the more silent parts. You just can't believe the amateurism sometimes.

As I already said, the orchestra has really improved, and the performances were decent; but in the end could be perhaps slightly better for one of the better orchestras of the country... Perhaps they never get much repetition time, (or perhaps don't bother for film music?), I don't know. But I was pleasantly surprised, really. Overall, Dirk Brossé, of course, saves the evening, demanding such a high level of performance. He's just such a great conductor.
In the end, it was a great evening. Just hearing these pieces live for the first time is an experience of its own.

I wasn't there, but if true, i can wholly sympathize with him on the orchestra's performance matters and about the sound. If these 2 aren't good and the organization is lacking, it's a real shame. But i am sure most professionals are always open to constructive criticism in order to improve next time.

If I was to compare the Goldsmith and Williams concerts overall, I would give Williams 9 because the good parts more than outweigh the bad parts (more like minor niggles actually like technical issues and performance not always up to par, only rarely so), but I agree Goldsmith was a solid 10, because the music was performed flawlessly and even sounding better than the CD recordings I've heard so far...

hook?
where would that fall?

haha touche!

All right.

1. Raiders of The lost Ark
2. The Temple of Doom
3. Hook
4. Empire Strikes back
5. Jaws
6. Jurassic Park
7. The Patriot
8. Amistad
9. Schindler's List
10. Presumed Innocent

this was extremely difficult

ah, those french horns in that main theme... *tear*

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Return of the Jedi
3. Close Encounters
4. Hook
5. Superman
6. Star Wars
7. E.T.
8. Jurassic Park
9. Raiders of the Lost Ark
10. Indy and the Temple of Doom

Those first 5 create goosebumps up the wazoo for me, and leave me in utter amazement once they are done playing

Indy is definitely not my fave Williams but it sure is insanely good Williams, just not top 5 worthy...

Alrighty, mine turn. For my a Williams top 10 is pretty single-minded... I have to include almost everything from the same couple of franchises, leaving not much space left for anything else!!

1) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
2) Star Wars : The Empire Strikes Back
3) Star Wars : Return of the Jedi
4) Hook
5) Star Wars : The Phantom Menace
6) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
7) Star Wars : A New Hope
8) Raiders of the Lost Ark
9) 1941
10) Jurassic Park

Of course, the other two Star Wars were not too far behind, but so were Superman and Witches of Eastwick.

Here is my list:

1. Hook
2. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
3. The Empire Strikes Back
4. Schindler's List
5. E.T.
6. Amistad
7. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
8. Stepmom
9. Saving Private Ryan

...sort of... I am pretty sure about the first five, not 100% sure of the rest...