John Williams

The Hook OST is indeed some of the best Williams stuff.
Unfortunately, he completely ripped it off when he made the Harry Potter soundtracks . It pisses me off to no end, for whatever reason.

I also enjoyed the Witches of Eastwick music, especially his arrangement of the theme for solo violin and piano (as performed by Gil Shaham).

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Gr|m

I thought the harry potter themes were pretty unique is there a particular track that reminds you of hook? cause if so i would love to listen.

Okay...I'm way to tired to edit and put the two parts next to each other, but just listen to "Hook-napped" from the Hook OST and "Hedwig's Theme" from the HP and the Sorceror's Stone OST. There's a figure in there that is almost exactly the same. Even so, if you listen to the two they sound like they're from the same soundtrack, with similar use of the strings and horn entrances.

A friend of mine pointed this out when we played the Harry Potter music in orchestra a few years back and I was really irritated by it, because the Hook music is my favorite.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by LeHah

Well, think of it this way - no original music has been written in over a 100 years. Everything before or since is just ideas that are taken one step further (rock and heavy metal) or just variations on the same idea (prepared piano - be it with blocks of wood or peices of meat).

Everything is both old and new. Every composer has been 'borrowing' from their predecessors since the beginning of Western music (and probably before that, too): the first composers were creating Masses and organ works that were variations of tunes composed by anonymous church musicians. Even atonal composers create their works based off of foundations created by Haydn and Mozart (like motivic unity). So really, everything is a 'step forward/variations' on previous musical ideas, even over 200 years ago. All pre-18th century composers used some dissonance, but in such small amounts that it didn't offend any ears. When Wagner, Bartok and Stravinsky (among many others) introduced atonal chords, the thing that made it stand out is the fact that the listeners were not familiar with the sound because it wasn't frequently encountered in the music they were used to hearing. So it is with music composed today, which is at the same time new and old. With the advent of electronics, composers are finding new ways to incorporate tape, feedback and all sorts of things that are traditionally not musical, and it forces the listeners to approach the music differently, to discover how the composer is trying to express through the sound -- which makes it new.

Quote:

The heck with that - try Home Alone against either of those
(Note that all three movies take place or have something to do with the season of winter at some point)

In the case of Hook and HP, his orchestration is standard for the "Mysterious- Magical" common theme, not Winter. Hell, this can go for Home Alone also, because Christmas is the "Magical" time of the year. It's all in his horn usage, I swear.

Originally Posted by Gr|M

Arkhangelsk, I just listened to them both and I agree with you the part in Napped is almost exactly the same as Hedwig's Theme with exception of a couple notes and tempo differences etc. But yeah good observation.

Thanks. Not that it's some kind of offense against all things orchestral that he did that... even though he quotes himself -- and I often don't like it -- there are an awful lot of composers who quote their own earlier works in later ones (Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances is the quickest example I can think of). That's why I get pissed off when 'classical' musicians go around saying that John Williams is "The worst composer ever omg." Even though I don't think Williams is the most *original* composer, he does know how to craft memorable and resonating themes for his music: Jurassic Park, multiple things from Star Wars, Indiana Jones,Hedwig's theme.... In the end, that's what really matters to the audience at large.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Zephos

The Witches of Eastwick, one of Williams' best and rarest scores, is being re-issued by "Collector's Choice".

Indeed. It's one of my other favorite scores of his, but I especially like the arrangement he did of the theme for violin solo and piano. Devilish and full of showy licks for the soloist.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?