[Mark Burgess]

Anyone else just kinda, not into Sibelius? I feel like I’m the only one.

I drift in and out of the mood to deal with all composers. In the end, I neither like nor dislike most. But I did discover Sibelius some years ago, after being sceptical of Finlandia for a long time. His symphonies are brilliant, quite unique, and very beautiful — in spite of the bitter scorn that was poured onto him by contemporaries like Schoenberg with his 12 tone vanity project.

At the moment, I am rediscovering the brilliance of Casella, a little known Italian composer, who wrote 3 wonderful symphonies in a sort of Mahlerian style.

[Mark Burgess]

Very nice:

Film Music of Christopher Gunning

[Mark Burgess]

Probably someone has already posted this, but it popped up in one of my feeds and I think is rather lovely,

John Williams Oscar Medley

FYI
M

[Mark Burgess]

I have seen the film now. It’s not very good.

Wow, for Emily Blunt! She is brilliant. Alas, the rest is gibberish. Weak story, gratuitous action. Empathy? Not really. The score was the only disclosure worth mentioning, but I have listened at greater length now and I think there are some musical references going on.

But – I am now sure that any references in the music have nothing to do with the storyline of the film. I think my little conspiracy of thematic references is probably John Williams self-referencing his own work for fun (and maybe because the film really needs something to help it along).

My Musical Resonance Imaging scanner has found a few more hat-tips in the album score. I jotted them down fyi,

A.I. theme: memory, celestial, reprise
Close Encounters theme: celestial, chase
E.T. theme: believe

Then there are lots of stylistic things, like the government “horns” and the “press” newsreel musical styles that JW often uses in scores, without them being actual quotes.

And that draws a line under it all from me. I think the score was better than the movie. It’s a shame that Steven Spielberg rushed into this project. The potential idea deserves something much bigger than this quirky cliché romp that smashes up a few vehicles for no obvious reason.

[Mark Burgess]

Disclosure Day does not have any overt musical thematic connections or references to A.I..

That sounds like a response generated by an A.I. 🙂
Listen to the closing piece and you’ll hear an encoded reference to it.

[Mark Burgess]

The main theme it cites is Cinque’s Theme from Amistad.

Aha, that’s a score I don’t have, so I wouldn’t recognize it. Maybe he’s dropping clues all over for the observant. The thinly veiled A.I. theme jumped out at me straight away. It isn’t note for note, but “encoded” 🙂

[Mark Burgess]

On first listening, the thing that jumped out at me straightaway was that JW cites (or constantly hints at) the theme from A.I. — so now I’m wondering what that says about the film (which I haven’t seen).

At least, I think it’s the A.I. theme, if memory serves, but my memory is never quite what it used to be(!) It’s not from Close Encounters or E.T. anyway, which I could have expected given the press comments.

[Mark Burgess]

Great stories from Cailin!

I also had the pleasure of meeting James Newton Howard (slightly) at his concert in the Golden Hall, Vienna. I was impressed by the rapport he had with the orchestra. They seemed to genuinely like him and his music. I had a 30 year quest to get a copy of “Falling Down” after seeing the film. That made a big impression on me.

He has covered a bunch of styles over the years. I find that (on first blush) the music is sometimes dull for me, but when I get into it, it sort of unravels into a deeper appreciation of the skill. I did like his first two Harry Potter, beasts and whatnot scores. I’m always amazed by how productive he is.

[Mark Burgess]

I see that the fabulous USM Haller serves as a rack for that very fine HiFi setup

It seemed to be made for it! 🙂

[Mark Burgess]

then with Soundtrack on Amiga,

Ah, an Amiga man! I actually owned the very first original Amiga (later called 1000) to arrive in the UK (and then the prerelease Archimedes, which I’d been commissioned to write some software for) back in my sordid past. It was a bit too early to have any affordable software for the Amiga though. I did make a few simple bits of music with it much later on, like this:

IPv4 surfing

[Mark Burgess]

Ok, try again… One from my old apartment (that still had my Linn Basik collectors edition turntable). That’s a full Akurate stack (which I bought piece by piece). The DS, pre amplifier and independent twin channel stereo power amp. B&W Nautilus 8 speakers.

And a new one that’s tidied up and purely digital ,,

[Mark Burgess]

Yes, it’s an expensive hobby. I now define it as “research” in my company so it becomes an expense 🙂

I also use Logic Pro, and I use the Opus East/West symphonic library for rendering. That maxes out my budget already (and my diskspace!)
Using libraries is complicated, I think. I’ve learned a lot by doing (and redoing) many times. Logic isn’t my ideal system, but I sort of know how to do stuff now…

[Mark Burgess]

I was in Canada when this was released, so it has a special place….

[Mark Burgess]

Don’t know how to post an image that isn’t a URL …

[Mark Burgess]

Interesstingly I love to listen via headphones since I feel to be more focussed and able to hear/dive into more details. But I don’t have any high end equipment or ever had…

Yes, Hifi is the one expensive thing I bought in my life (after convincing myself I could/should finally afford it). I chose my apartments for proper sund insulation too, so I could play at a good level. For orchestra music, the dynamic range is really big (esp at 24 bits) and when the sound is pure you have no idea how loud it actually is (until someone tries to talk to you). Loudspeakers can generate sounds/frequencies that headphones can’t, so there’s no comparison, but you need to have decent acoustics otherwise it doesn’t help.

[Mark Burgess]

Btw, do you have a folder system for your files?

I have a filesystem that keeps track of files by composer/artist and then album (I never collect anything that isn’t a complete album). When it comes to searching, I’m stuck with whatever the renderer permits, which varies. Qobuz search is quite good. My home files are served on a Twonky server, which could be better, but it sort of works.

[Mark Burgess]

Nice moody track as Thor already mentioned.

Thanks! There’s a whole album of flying birds and collapsing ecosystems too 🙂

[Mark Burgess]

Isn’t that true for all music?

I tend to love more than loathe. Certain things (like a harmonica) would make me loathe 🙂

[Mark Burgess]

I gave up Vinyl and Cassettes when CDs came along, and I gave up CDs when digital FLAC came along.

I was always a HiFi buf, so I went through stages of having NAD 3020/Dual turntable to now having a Linn Akurate/B&W setup.

I ripped all my CDs and replace those versions as remasters come out. The remasters are usually the same 16/44 resolution but are able to push that to the max when remastered. Initial masters from the 80s/90s were often very poor. Especially for some film music, though varies enormously.

For instance, I have 4 versions of the Captain Scarlet music, for instance, each one better than the last. The restoration of old tapes is also much improved. I have multiple versions of the first three Star Wars scores, too. They did not improve as much as other things, and the latest 192/24 sampling is just silly. It’s no better than a 16 bit remaster, because there simply isn’t more information in the tapes.

We should all celebrate the fans orgs/companies who restore old soundtracks. They do a fantastic job, even though it’s annoying that they won’t sell digital FLAC instead of having to buy a CD.

I never listened to MP3 (ugh). I did buy a couple of iTunes albums that were out of print elsewhere in Apple’s awful proprietary format, but now I have a subscription to Qobuz, which I am very happy with. They serve max resolution digital quite reliably (bar a recent bug in CDN replication), and I like that they pay musicians better than the other platforms do. I’m happy to support them.

I listen on loudspeakers mostly. Only use headphones if travelling or listening to something specific. Speakers have far superior dynamic range (at least with a good amp).

[Mark Burgess]

My mum bought this for me when it was released. Symptomatic of Barry’s latter years, and very popular on British ClassicFM radio. I either love it or loathe it, depending on my mood 🙂

[Mark Burgess]

This short cue is very nicely done.

[Mark Burgess]

I don’t know SHINE, I never saw the film, but I seem to remember that it was based on Rachmaninov’s famous 3rd piano concerto. If you want an excellent rendition of those concertos by the colourful Yuja Wang, this:

Yuja Wang plays Rachmaninoff

[Mark Burgess]

Btw, another documentary composer I thought of is Barnaby Taylor (Wild China)

Wild China

[Mark Burgess]

I should add an addendum to the last part — that many soundtracks from Hollywood also use orchestra simulation rather than the real thing, since it’s obviously much cheaper. Those people use much more sophisticated (and expensive) synchronized computer than I can possibly justify, but then they get the big bucks. They might overdub some strings later, since they are the hardest instrument to simulate.

[Mark Burgess]

And btw, Mark, I DID listen to some of your stuff earlier, and even commented on it in the “Have you ever composed any music?” thread.

Thanks, Thor. I didn’t notice, but I replied after it now.

[Mark Burgess]

Mark, I had a brief listen-through of some of your stuff. Seems you veer more towards the textural than in-your-face thematic, but many textures to explore, for sure. For the approximations of orchestral music, have you used the same software for all of it, or have you changed gear over the years since 2017?

Thanks for listening, Thor. You’re right, I rarely go for obvious themes, with only a few exceptions. If there are themes, they are often buried motifs that come back in different forms, so you have to watch out for them. Like in Valentine Skies, and Cupid Conspiracy etc. But then there’s the elephant march, which is a deliberately Indiana Jones heroic theme.

The orchestra tech has evolved a lot since 2017, yes. The whole industry is better than it was. I am also more skilled at using it than I was. It takes a lot of twiddling to make a convincing performance. Every note has to be adjusted for phrasing. There are some things you just can’t play convincingly. I always write every part, like a real score, just in case I can persuade someone to play it one day 🙂

The David Attenborough was inspired by him series, and a couple of short film sequences that we put together. But these were never used for anything in the end…which is a shame, since i put a lot of work into those pieces.

[Mark Burgess]

Fiery and fabulous!

[Mark Burgess]

And this is beautiful

Once again the Liverpool Phil doing a great job of promoting modern symphonic recordings (re: James Horner, Andrew Manze etc)

[Mark Burgess]

For some reason I didn’t think of Qigang Chen. The Flowers of War is very lovely, as is “Coming Home”.

Also, as mentioned in my Wuxia article, the naturey George Fentony music of Xiaogang <> Ye

is very broad and cinematic.

[Mark Burgess]

I don’t really have favourites as such – more as the mood takes me. But I think Horner falls into 3 groups of scores for my taste:

1st – most excellent

Wrath of Khan
Search For Spock
The Rocketeer
The Last Wolf
Glory
Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
The Ludlows

2 – Innovative and memorable

Sneakers
Cocoon
Braveheart
Name of the Rose
The Land Before Time
Karate Kid

3 – Works well on the film, but too many bits stolen or recycled etc

Apollo 13 (nice but derivative)
Aliens (nice but derivative)
Enemy at the Gate (nice but derivative)
Patriot Games
etc

[Author]

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