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Awesomeness and other things that happened to me
Well, I got to see John Williams conducting the Boston Pops. :D :D :D And our seats were literally right next to the stage, which means that I could have stood up and shook his hand. (I didn't, but I could have.) Yes, I had to crank my neck to see anything above stage level, but that was a minor annoyance compared to the wonderfulness of everything else. I have been a gushy fangirl for John Williams ever since I was old enough to realize that movie music was written by someone, and all the music I liked best was written by the same man. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy.
They began with a piece of his called Sound the Bells, which I hadn't heard before. It featured, not surprisingly, lots of bells. A nice, rousing piece. Then music from Close Encounters, accompanied by a montage of scenes from the film. As always, it illustrated just how much his music creates the mood, even when there's no dialogue. In fact, he took a break after that to welcome us and talk a little bit, and he joked (or maybe he was perfectly serious) that there's something nice for a composer's vanity to have the movie without any of those pesky lines or sound effects to dampen the music's effect. Heh. Then he introduced the next part, two pieces from Harry Potter, by noting that it's the biggest thing from England since the Beatles. ;) More movie scenes; it looked like they used the first four films. They finished out the first half with a piece from E.T. (music that invariably transports me to my early childhood, dancing around to my mom's cassette tape of "Sci-Fi Movie Music" which just happened to have every other track composed by John Williams).
The second half started with another piece I hadn't known, Liberty Fanfare, and then two pieces from Superman. He introduced that with some very nice words about Christopher Reeve. The Superman March was accompanied by perhaps the strangest film montage, including clips from Superman I and II, Superman Returns....and all the Batman movies of recent memory. ? Not sure why, especially since he didn't write music for any such film, but it was kind of fun and surreal to see such disparate renditions of Batman and his villains all lumped together. Anyway, the next piece was the only one not written by John Williams, the theme from Cinema Paradiso - since this was, after all, a concert celebrating movies. The violin solo was gorgeous. To finish, they played three themes from Star Wars - the Imperial March, Princess Leia, and the throne room, which led into the main theme as played in the closing credits.
But of course we wanted more, and kept clapping and cheering. Someone associated with the Pops came out and told John Williams that they had put together a video as a tribute to him, and they needed a composer to direct the accompanying music and since there wasn't anyone else to do it...? Heh. Apparently this only happened on Wednesday night, because John Williams seemed quite surprised. So I'm very glad we were there that night. Finally, for the encore piece they played the theme from Indiana Jones, and while we kept clapping and cheering he smiled and made a "I need to go to sleep now gesture" before leaving the stage. He seems a very gracious, amiable man, and good grief he has a lot of energy for his age!
In short, best present ever.
They began with a piece of his called Sound the Bells, which I hadn't heard before. It featured, not surprisingly, lots of bells. A nice, rousing piece. Then music from Close Encounters, accompanied by a montage of scenes from the film. As always, it illustrated just how much his music creates the mood, even when there's no dialogue. In fact, he took a break after that to welcome us and talk a little bit, and he joked (or maybe he was perfectly serious) that there's something nice for a composer's vanity to have the movie without any of those pesky lines or sound effects to dampen the music's effect. Heh. Then he introduced the next part, two pieces from Harry Potter, by noting that it's the biggest thing from England since the Beatles. ;) More movie scenes; it looked like they used the first four films. They finished out the first half with a piece from E.T. (music that invariably transports me to my early childhood, dancing around to my mom's cassette tape of "Sci-Fi Movie Music" which just happened to have every other track composed by John Williams).
The second half started with another piece I hadn't known, Liberty Fanfare, and then two pieces from Superman. He introduced that with some very nice words about Christopher Reeve. The Superman March was accompanied by perhaps the strangest film montage, including clips from Superman I and II, Superman Returns....and all the Batman movies of recent memory. ? Not sure why, especially since he didn't write music for any such film, but it was kind of fun and surreal to see such disparate renditions of Batman and his villains all lumped together. Anyway, the next piece was the only one not written by John Williams, the theme from Cinema Paradiso - since this was, after all, a concert celebrating movies. The violin solo was gorgeous. To finish, they played three themes from Star Wars - the Imperial March, Princess Leia, and the throne room, which led into the main theme as played in the closing credits.
But of course we wanted more, and kept clapping and cheering. Someone associated with the Pops came out and told John Williams that they had put together a video as a tribute to him, and they needed a composer to direct the accompanying music and since there wasn't anyone else to do it...? Heh. Apparently this only happened on Wednesday night, because John Williams seemed quite surprised. So I'm very glad we were there that night. Finally, for the encore piece they played the theme from Indiana Jones, and while we kept clapping and cheering he smiled and made a "I need to go to sleep now gesture" before leaving the stage. He seems a very gracious, amiable man, and good grief he has a lot of energy for his age!
In short, best present ever.
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