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Sounds like a bunch of crap to me, the only decent music Williams can write is some of his film scores. The only primary "film composers" that wrote good concert music; Rozsa, and Korngold. Any other examples come to mind??
Herrmann's Moby Dick and The Fantastiks as well as his Symphony 1 are very strong works. Wuthering Heights too.
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Herrmann's Moby Dick and The Fantastiks as well as his Symphony 1 are very strong works. Wuthering Heights too.
Oooh yeah. Particularly Moby Dick - that one's amazing.
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It's what the Battle of Hoth would sound like if all the Imperial walker crews were drunk.
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Posted: |
Jul 3, 2014 - 3:49 PM
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By: |
Gunnar
(Member)
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I like the Scherzo a lot and would love if a proper recording was available soon. There is a lot of interesting stuff happening between the piano and the orchestra that I'd love to listen to more closely.
Isn't there a microphone stand right in fron of the piano?
The piece reminded me of some of Williams' film music - my initial reaction being that it is a close relative of "The Hunt" from The Lost World. I actually found it pretty evocative with its call and answer parts. And I liked particularly the contrast between the frenetic piano writing and the heavy, voluminous, quite film music-like orchestral statements. If I see a kinship to the Lost World here, I should also note that I thought of The Five Sacred Trees as somewhat like a grown-up approach towards "magic", a serious sibling of Harry Potter, so to speak.
Honestly, this scherzo excited me more and made me stop and listen much more than, let's say, The Book Thief. The latter is still beautiful, accomplished music and probably has a compositional quality beyond many other composers. But as pure music, it sounds nice to me and not much more. The Scherzo, on the other hand, really made me want more of it.
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Posted: |
Jul 4, 2014 - 4:35 AM
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By: |
chriss
(Member)
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In all seriousness, my problem with this kind of music is exactly what I stated before: It is, almost single-handedly, what killed the symphony orchestra. It's not accessible, it's not memorable, it's very harsh and grating and the number of people who would PAY MONEY to sit through something like this is vastly marginal compared to something like, say, THE NUTCRACKER Suite.
THAT piece of music will be loved and cherish (and performed) for hundreds of years. John Corigliano's Clarinet Concerto? Or this? Probably not, except perhaps by music historians as a small footnote in the history of music.
This kind of stuff feels elitist and pretentious, intentionally designed to be enjoyable only to fellow musicians who can appreciate the "virtuosity" of the performance requirements and complexity of the meters or rhythms, without offering anything the average listener can take away and be transported by (except, of course, to cat-punching territory).
I was in a philharmonic concert last year. It began with Smetana's Vltava (The Moldau) followed by the Schumann Piano Concerto. In the second half they played a symphony by Martinu. About half of the audience had left the Philharmonic Hall during the intermission. I often like music of the 20th century but the Martinu piece was so boring. I can understand why so many had no interest in hearing this. And there was not even an encore performed after that.
Later I heard the first Brahms symphony in concert and they played after that the Hungarian Dance No. 5 and Unter Donner und Blitz by Strauss. The audience was happy and cheering. Go figure.
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It's very good, what we hear of it here.
This kind of music needs two things:
(a) that you maybe just a little try to follow the structure (he's doing things here with repeated stuctures in subtle ways with variation), and,
(b) that you plug into the emotion. Film 'emotion' is often of the 2D primal, simplistic kind. That's how they hook the biggest audiences. But real everyday emotion is COMPLEX and conflicted. God knows that Williams had in mind, if anything, in his emoting for this. It may well be unconscious for himself. That's art. Can you go with it?
There's a great slightly indignant, resolved propulsion about this piece.
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Posted: |
Jul 6, 2014 - 3:09 PM
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By: |
Gunnar
(Member)
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Actually, my experience is that there will be critics who pan him every time he writes for the concert hall.
I'm with you - I'd love to hear him write for the concert hall in his film music style, free from the requirements of a movie. And this is what I expected to hear when I bought his first concerts (violin and flute) a long time ago. And to be honest, I was a bit let down back then by these works. I definitely listened more to Jurassic Park, which I picked up around the same time!
But by now, I completely understand if he wants to use the freedom of a concerto for trying something else; be it exploring the sonorities (or limits) of an instrument. Writing in a style that is not in demand by the people who hire him in Hollywood. Or perhaps even expressing something more complex than what a film asks for. I think, quite often his film music has to be very utilitarian. Sometimes he might be able to do something more complex, like conveying different moods or ideas at the same time, or exploring the psychology of a character. But film music will always ask him to convey something that is both rather specific and decipherable by the audience. Concert works may be the one chance for him to write pure music, and he might use this freedom to go to places that he wouldn't get the chance to explore otherwise. We'll never know what kind of music he'd write if he hadn't become a film composer who has been writing in the neo-romantic idiom all his life.
But, summing up, to me some of his albums actually play almost like symphonies, and after getting used to his "concert voice", I am very happy to be able to hear this side of him as well.
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Posted: |
Jul 27, 2014 - 6:18 AM
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By: |
Mike West
(Member)
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Amusing thread. Typical reactions from the usual roll call of outraged, cloth-eared, reactionary, Classic FM types-- forever tilting at windmills. Most often it's composers dismissed by (to be fair, equally close minded) academic institutions and now have an axe to grind against (nearly all) contemporary post-tonal music. See: Jeremy Soule.
Sad that their latest target is this engaging work by Williams. What's bizarre about the 'I love William's film music but this SUCKS!!!!' comments is how consistent in language this work is to Williams's film music - no, not the hummable themes, but his (equally superb) action and suspense music. The same pitch sets, clusters and tone colours. Either they don't know Williams's oeuvre as much as they think they do, or they're just utterly clueless.
very well put, mr sharky!
Absolutely agreed.
most of the negative comments are just clueless calling this too modern or too dissonant or too avantgarde.
Firstly, this kind of writing is in a lot of his scores as you said.
Secondly, there is a 100 years history of music which is far more dissonant and avantgarde.
In this area, and this is were Lang Lang and symphony orchestras move around in, this is pretty old school.
EDIT:
It is like all the river fishes here are in the deep ocean and upset about an encounter with a shark, mr shark
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