The Legacy of John Williams returns with a massive new audio and written feature!
Head Contributor Tim Burden guides you in a fascinating journey showcasing highlights and curiosities from 50 years of re-recordings of John Williams’ music—from the superb readings by Charles Gerhardt and Zubin Mehta to the recent vibrant recordings by Gustavo Dudamel, including some fun and unexpected oddities in-between.
To complement the podcast special, read the in-depth essay by Editor Maurizio Caschetto chronicling the history of John Williams' re-recordings made by other conductors and musicians from 1977 until today.
The Legacy of John Williams returns with a massive new audio and written feature!
Head Contributor Tim Burden guides you in a fascinating journey showcasing highlights and curiosities from 50 years of re-recordings of John Williams’ music—from the superb readings by Charles Gerhardt and Zubin Mehta to the recent vibrant recordings by Gustavo Dudamel, including some fun and unexpected oddities in-between.
To complement the podcast special, read the in-depth essay by Editor Maurizio Caschetto chronicling the history of John Williams' re-recordings made by other conductors and musicians from 1977 until today.
Thank you for the wonderful essay! :-) There are so many very interesting rather unknown interpretations of John Williams pieces. The "12 Cellisten der Berliner Philharmoniker" recorded on their "As time goes by" CD in 2004 three John Williams compositions excellently performed in my opinion. One of them is the seldom recorded "Family Portrait" from the Harry Potter Suite:
Maurizio, thanks for this, I can't wait to check it out!
Also, along related lines this may be of interest to you: I'm doing detailed MIDI mockups of the unused and partly unrecorded pieces from Star Wars. Here's the latest.
Maurizio, thanks for this, I can't wait to check it out!
Also, along related lines this may be of interest to you: I'm doing detailed MIDI mockups of the unused and partly unrecorded pieces from Star Wars. Here's the latest.
The Legacy of John Williams returns with a massive new audio and written feature!
Head Contributor Tim Burden guides you in a fascinating journey showcasing highlights and curiosities from 50 years of re-recordings of John Williams’ music—from the superb readings by Charles Gerhardt and Zubin Mehta to the recent vibrant recordings by Gustavo Dudamel, including some fun and unexpected oddities in-between.
To complement the podcast special, read the in-depth essay by Editor Maurizio Caschetto chronicling the history of John Williams' re-recordings made by other conductors and musicians from 1977 until today.
Interesting article. When I saw this I actually was expecting many more rather unknown rerecordings from the earlier times, like those by Roy Budd. There are probably some more worth mentioning.
Erich Kunzel was really always top notch. I had the pleasure to attend a concert in Cincinnati's concert venue. They named the small street right in front after Kunzel. It was Kunzel's idea, as you all will know, to have the finale from "The T-Rex Rescue" as appendix of the Jurrasic Park suite. The organ in Kunzel's Lost World Theme is terrific.
The Utah recording of Star Wars music is also musically brillant, maybe even on a higher level. The Charles Gerhard recordings are in tendency not on the same level, there are some issues in intonation and synchronisation in many of his recordings. Listen to the end title of Star Wars EP V on the podcast. The brass up-beats at the ending are not entirely in synch. His recordings often have these small flaws. They are really enjoyable nevertheless.
EDIT: Now I listened to more of the podcast to find out that it does indeed include some of the unknown gems! So it is just the article which focuses on the known contributions.
I was listening to the podcast today - good stuff! But the John Mauceri-conducted DRACULA lasts from 1:26:11 to about 2:12:something. It's 45 minutes long! And it's just bits of the same track repeated over and over again! Normal service was resumed when Tim suddenly appeared talking about AMAZING STORIES.
Wonderful topic for discussion, as both an article and a podcast discussion. When it comes to re-recordings of film music, for me, I've mostly enjoyed those focused on the Golden Age scores (usually sounding better than the original archival recordings), Bernard Herrmann scores (again, better sound or never released before, like F451) and Williams scores. With most every other composer, I tend to prefer the original film cues or the original album versions, but Herrmann and Williams music seem to translate very well to newly performed concert suites. There are times when I choose to listen to those re-recordings over the originals!
Corrupt download maybe Graham? I've got to 1hr 43 mins or so and Lockhart/Boston Pops are playing Home Alone, Sleepers and Goodbye Mr Chips? ____________________________________________________________________________________________
Yeah Simon, not sure what that's all about. I just click on "Listen to the Episode", and each time - on phone or on Big Compo - I get the 45-minute DRACULA mess-up. I know that track REALLY well now, or at least a part of it, and hear how it differs from the old LP I had (never got round to getting any CD versions). But the whole caboodle is helping me to understand the validity of umpteen re-recordings of certain scores... but only up to a point.
Great episode! It was nice to hear comments on some of the classic re-recordings of yesterday, especially Gerhardt's and Mehta's recordings of STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. Is it true that those original suites from STAR WARS are no longer available for performance?
Also, congratulations to you and your family, Maurizio.
