So the Michael Dees version of Moonlight can't be on a Sabrina album, but could theoretically be included on some other John Williams related album or compilation? I wonder if the same might be possible for the unreleased source cues from Jaws 2 or Schindler's List for example or if John would would veto their release? If it's just about releasing them in the right kind of presentation, I'm sure there's more than enough other odds and ends from the different eras of John's career to make some fascinating rarities albums.
Paramount would still want to get Sting's permission even if they wanted to release the song as a digital single. But Dees would have to be paid because he did not grant phonographic rights to his recording. He would have to give permission and would also have the right to negotiate his compensation.
As for "odds and ends" Williams recordings for other movies, there are all sorts of issues. For starters you're correct that if something was vetoed from being part of an expanded soundtrack, it's unlikely that it would be approved for a separate compilation.
Another questions. Has Sting performed Moonlight live in concert at all? I've seen him a few times, and well, he only played Sting songs!
I haven't seen the contract for myself, and I don't recall that he's performed it. I've certainly heard it on Sirius XM "Escape" channel, so it gets airplay and likely still sends a few quid his way.
This set has been a delight from start to finish on both discs. The original 1995 CD has been in my rotation for many years when I felt like listening to something from the breezy and light side of John Williams. The expansion finally gives the full score its due, and the Party in the Moonlight disc was a welcome way to present all of the digetic music and variations from the movie. Thank you Mike and the team at LLL for this latest JW release... going to be enjoying this one for many years to come!
On the subject of musicality, I was listening to Party in the Moonlight, and commented to friends how much I liked it, even though I'd set myself up to expect a "big band doing slow music" vibe, rather than the sparser, more piano focused pieces, and almost as I typed it, I started hearing big band doing slow music, basically right on cue, so to speak.
This really is one of Williams's most breathtakingly beautiful, shockingly underrated scores.
It's wonderful to finally hear the full score, and remixed so beautifully.
"Growing Up In Paris" is one of my favorite Williams cues ever. He absolutely nails Sabrina's emotional growth over the course of a montage. While I love the whole film, in this cue, Williams conveys a depth of feeling FAR beyond anything in the script, the performances, or in the film craft. His music here singlehandledy sells Sabrina's transformation from wallflower to sophisticated woman.
This is the mix from the 1995 CD, hideously compressed for YouTube, to hear it properly, buy the new LLL CD set.
"Growing Up In Paris" is one of my favorite Williams cues ever. He absolutely nails Sabrina's emotional growth over the course of a montage. While I love the whole film, in this cue, Williams conveys a depth of feeling FAR beyond anything in the script, the performances, or in the film craft. His music here singlehandledy sells Sabrina's transformation from wallflower to sophisticated woman.
I am so glad someone else pointed out this specific cue. I used an excerpt in the preview podcast we made with Mike a couple weeks ago because it's one of my absolute favorite from this score and I think it's an incredibly beautiful piece for all the reasons you mention, i.e. Williams' mastery at being a musical dramaturgist, but also at how he's always able to craft a piece that can be enjoyed as pure music. In addition to the inspired melody of How Can I Remember, there are some very subtle yet brilliant orchestration choices like the Eb alto sax doubling the alto flute, the use of metal mutes on trumpet and the gorgeous flugelhorn solo (courtesy of the late Warren Luening) that give the piece an even more special quality. Sorry for this unabashed praise to the point of wheedling, but this cue is so good that it deserves all the poetic-waxing commentary.
I am so glad someone else pointed out this specific cue. I used an excerpt in the preview podcast we made with Mike a couple weeks ago because it's one of my absolute favorite from this score and I think it's an incredibly beautiful piece for all the reasons you mention, i.e. Williams' mastery at being a musical dramaturgist, but also at how he's always able to craft a piece that can be enjoyed as pure music. In addition to the inspired melody of How Can I Remember, there are some very subtle yet brilliant orchestration choices like the Eb alto sax doubling the alto flute, the use of metal mutes on trumpet and the gorgeous flugelhorn solo (courtesy of the late Warren Luening) that give the piece an even more special quality. Sorry for this unabashed praise to the point of wheedling, but this cue is so good that it deserves all the poetic-waxing commentary.
I totally agree, I think I'd put it in my top 10 or top 20 favorite Williams cues ever, it's truly masterful.
The weakness in the original film was always Sabrina as a character, especially her psychology. She was a male fantasy, without an inner life. The 1995 film does a stunning job of correcting that, to my mind. The key addition is the lengthy Paris sequence. We truly see how this naive girl, swept up in self-destructive romantic fantasies, manages to come out of her shell and become a confident, self-aware woman. And this montage does a LOT of the heavy lifting for that transformation. The musical journey over three minutes really allows the audience to feel Sabrina's emotional arc, as if they're living it.
I remember reading once, in a discussion of Yared's score for The Talented Mr. Ripley, that the greatest film scores aren't just mood music, they take us into an individual character's perspective on a scene, so we experience the events as they do and feel what they do. This is Williams's great gift. His music isn't just pretty. It isn't just decorative or generically mood-enhancing, like 90% of film music these days. His music draws out the subtlest emotional nuances in each moment of a film and then moors them, like you say, to a musical structure that still works as a listening experience on its own.
There has never been another film composer who comes close to Williams's combination of towering craft and open-hearted ability to feel everything the characters do, and transpose it into music that allows the audience to feel those emotions too.
I've always had a soft spot for this score (and film), and this release is absolutely delightful in every respect. My thanks and compliments to the team that got this across the finish line. It's going to be played loudly and often.
I also want to say that I applaud the decision to move all the source music and songs to their own disc, and to allow the score to play as one musical journey on the first disc.
While I've always enjoyed the soundtrack album, hearing the whole score, in chronological order, is wonderful and gives me a renewed appreciation for Williams's narrative gifts, as I mentioned above.
Yes, this is quite a winner! I don't much recall the film, will watch it again soon, but I'm enjoying this presentation very much more than the original album. Which may also be about what I enjoy listening to these days.
Mike Matessino's notes read like the chapter of a book, exploring some interesting byways. A good read. One small error:
In talking about the screenplay for the original film, Mike says that "Ernest Lehman, Wilder's Sweet Smell of Success scribe, came in for a frenzied rewrite...." But the director of Sweet Smell was Alexander MacKendrick. Wilder was not connected to that one. Still, it is a bitter take on Hollywood, like Wilder's own Sunset Boulevard, maybe that's the reason for the slip.
Ok, back to the score. Which I'm going back to right now!
Yes. From the JW Book Of Revelations, it really was a hybrid patchwork quilt of an album we were served up back in 1995. Not to say it wasn't a pleasant, well-produced souvenir of the film, incorporating the songs, source music and a smattering of JW score cues to whet our appetites for the Main Meal that would follow...28 Years Later (Hungry Much!!). But hearing the 50 minute JW score as one long uninterrupted piece reveals a beautifully varied work, akin to ACCIDENTAL TOURIST or STANLEY & IRIS, albeit on a much larger, romantic canvas/setting and in execution. And so many more variants on the Nantucket tune, which I love, heard only briefly on the old album. Huzzah! A timeless romantic classic collection of themes by the Master Film Maestro that just oozes quality and style. I haven't played the Party In The Moonlight album yet, cos we haven't had enough people round for dinner yet, but that too looks like a swell idea to gather together the various songs, instrumentals and party pieces into one big DJ playset. To the makers of this 2CD Deluxe Edition, I salute you all.
Oh, and hearing the Film Version of Learning The Ropes (track 27) in the Bonus Section brought back a smile inducing memory of Training Montage from SPACECAMP. Brilliant!
