Word: wagner
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...composer of numerous film soundtracks including the upcoming Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. My friend was accusing Williams of being a shameless sell-out, a hack who borrows from a hundred other works, including his own soundtracks on occasion. The Star Wars soundtracks steal voluminously from Holst and Wagner, as well as Stravinsky; the soundtrack for JAWS is an amalgam of numerous traditional sea themes from dozens of sources. But while I attempted to make a comparison of Williams' use of so many different sources to that of Milton's insertion of classical references in Paradise Lost, it occurred...
...case of Star Wars, Holst's "The Planets" had been used in film, television, and even radio as soundtracks to space-related media; Williams knew that, and composed accordingly. As George Lucas was filming the original Star Wars, he used the work of Wagner and Holst as a makeshift soundtrack. When the time came for the creation of an original track, he asked Williams to create something similar...
...Each of the Star Wars soundtracks has its own character. Star Wars: A New Hope draws most strongly from Wagner, with a big, bursting, inspiring soundtrack that keeps the energy and lift all the way through to the climactic elimination of the Death Star in the "Battle of Yavin." The soundtrack of The Empire Strikes Back is a beautiful work, with powerful, poignant themes and the extremely memorable end title, as Luke and Leia watch Lando and Chewbacca fly into space to find Han and the music swells in the background. The Return of the Jedi is almost entirely action...
...Directed by visiting artist Diane Paulus of the Project 400 Theater Group, a New York-based theater company whose stated mission is to redefine what people think theater is, King Kong is a show that is as challenging as it is engaging. Loosely based on Richard Wagner's 1848 opera Lohengrin, which in turn was based on a German version of an Arthurian legend, Paulus's multimedia production tells the story of the virtuous knight Lohengrin and his efforts to save and marry Elsa, a princess unjustly accused of murder...
...concert also featured Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, that phylanstery of complex chromatic chords. While this piece showed off Allanbrook's technique to advantage, the performance suffered from major intonation problems. The tempi were questionable, but the reading cohered, if quirkily, and the ambition was impressive given the forces available...