November 2011 Listening Diary!

John Williams War Horse (2011) is one of those scores that makes me feel lucky to be alive and blessed to have discovered the music of John WIlliams:

More new John Williams music followed in the form of his score for The Adventures of Tintin (2011) which was released last month. Slowly but slowly its rhythms, harmonies, timbres, and melodies are planting themselves in the part of my brain that memorizes such things:

More new Williams music followed, this time a departure from film scores with my first listen to his new concert work "Quartet La Jolla" (2011) scored for the unusual combination of violin, cello, clarinet, and harp:

I also listened to Philip Glass's "Metamorphosis" piano pieces, especially No. 1 as I spent a lot of time practicing it on piano and guitar thoughout the first half of the month. I recorded my own version, but this performance is much better:

Sunday, November 13 - Wednesday, November 16: A change of pace and musical genres as a scary, stressful and entirely unexpected event at work lead me to listen to the following two songs over and over and over again:  

Saturday, November 19: While on the treadmill I listened for the first time to John Williams score for the failed pilot for Nightwatch (1965), a TV score that was almost entirely unknown and unheard before Film Score Monthly dug it up and released it earlier this month.

Sunday, November 20: I listened to Jerry Goldsmith's recently released score for the 1984 Christmas hit Gremlins while walking to the East Gate where I left my motorbike a few days earlier. Thankfully it was still there. Great score by the way. Jerry created one of his most beautiful melodies for the nice cute Mogwai.

More classic John WIlliiams keep me company on one of my treadmill workouts, this time it was the first half of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1980).

Elmer Bernstien's lovely score for To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) filled my ears during several walks to walk and around campus. I started learning Elmer's own piano arrangement he created for his daughter on the occassion of her 10th birthday. It's much simpler than the following orchestral version recorded for the filmt, but simpler in this case means in no way less beautiful:

 Well I'm completing this post well after the fact - December 14 to be precise - and as far as I can recall there weren't any other scores I listened to apart from the odd track here and there from the composers who are almost always on my listening radar.