Track Listing
CD 1 (66:11)
01. Main Title from Star Wars (1977) (5:44)
LSO 1996, London
02. Flying Theme from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (3:42)
LSO 1996, London
03. Main Title from Superman (1978) (4:25)
Original
04. Parade of the Slave Children from Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom
(1984) (4:53)
Boston Pops 1990, Symphony Hall Boston
05. Theme from The Sugarland Express (1974) (3:35)
Toots Thielemans, Harmonica
Boston Pops 1990, Symphony Hall Boston
06. Theme from Jaws (1975) (2:51)
LSO 1996, London
07. Bugler's Dream (by Leo Arnaud 1904-1991) & Olympic
Fanfare And Theme (1984) (3:47)
Written for 1984 Olympic Games, Los Angeles
Boston Pops 1996, Symphony Hall Boston
08. Luke And Leia from Return of the Jedi (1983) (5:02)
Skywalker Symphony Orchestra 1990, Skywalker Ranch
09. Main Title from The Reivers (1969) (5:13)
Original
10. The Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (3:04)
Skywalker Symphony Orchestra 1990, Skywalker Ranch
11. Scherzo For Motorcycle and Orchestra from Indiana Jones And The Last
Crusade (1989) (2:48)
Boston Pops 1990, Symphony Hall Boston
12. Cadillac of the Skies from Empire Of The Sun (1987) (4:58)
Boston Pops 1990, Symphony Hall Boston
American Boychoir (James H. Litton, Chorus Director)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus (John Oliver, Chorus Director)
13. The Raiders March from Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981) (5:11)
Boston Pops 1990, Symphony Hall Boston
14. Suite from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) (9:46)
Boston Pops 1990, Symphony Hall Boston
American Boychoir (James H. Litton, Chorus Director)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus (John Oliver, Chorus
Director)
John Williams (1996)
CD 2 (73:46)
01. Hymn to the Fallen from Saving Private Ryan (1998) (6:10)
Original (Boston Symphony Orchestra 1998)
02. Theme from Jurassic Park (1993) (5:29)
Boston Pops 1995, Symphony Hall
03. Theme from Schindler's List (1993) (3:32)
Itzhak Perlman, Violin
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra 1996
04. Flight to Neverland from Hook (1991) (4:41)
Boston Pops 1995, Symphony Hall
05. Seven Years In Tibet from Seven Years In Tibet (1997) (7:09)
Yo-Yo Ma, Cello
Original
06. Prologue from JFK (1991) (4:00)
Tim Morrison, Trumpet
Original
07. The Days Between from Stepmom (1998) (6:27)
Christopher Parkening, Guitar
Original
08. March from 1941 (1979) (4:14)
Boston Pops 1990, Symphony Hall
09. Somewhere In My Memory - Main Title from Home Alone (1990) (4:54)
Words by Leslie Bricusse
Original
10. Summon The Heroes (for Tim Morrison) (1996) (6:14)
Written for the Centennial Celebration of the Modern
Olympic Games, Atlanta
Boston Pops 1996
11. Look Down, Lord (Reprise And Finale) from Rosewood (1997)
(4:12)
Tommy Morgan, Harmonica
Dean Parks, Guitar
Original
12. Theme from Far And Away (1992) (5:34)
Itzhak Perlman, Violin
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra 1996
13. Theme from Born On The Fourth Of July (1989) (6:20)
Tim Morison, Trumpet
Boston Pops 1991
14. Duel of the Fates from Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999)
(4:14)
Original (LSO 1999)
Every fan of STAR WARS - and of great
music - is in his debt.
George Lucas
I want to salute John Williams - the
quintessential film composer. John has transformed and uplifted every movie that we've
made together.
Steven Spielberg
It has been a very special experience
to carve out these three films together (Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Nixon). In each
one, John Williams brought to them the soul of a poet. Working with him was like flying
through the light. I shall never forget it.
Oliver Stone
In Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The
Extra-Terrestrial, the famous "flying" theme - perhaps the most thrilling melody
John Williams ever wrote - isn't heard, in its full glory, right at the beginning of the
movie. Early on, as the anxious E.T. develops a trusting relationship with ten-year-old
Elliott, the theme is suggested in subdued and altered form. Indeed, much of the early
music is tentative and anticipatory - say, just a shimmer of strings held in suspension
and accompanied by a single flute.
Mixed in with this lovely, evocative music, one can hear no more than a modest version of
the flying theme: when Elliott, with E.T.'s help, makes the oranges and limes circle
around one another like the planets in the solar system, we hear it; and then again when
E.T. makes a plant come to life in Elliott's house. Finally, Elliott and E.T., riding in
Elliott's bicycle, take off into the air, passing in front of the face of the moon, and
the flying theme which really represents all of E.T.'s creative powers bursts out in
the full orchestra.
Over a pulsing, driving, rhythm, the strings soar, the horns leap heroically. It is one of
the truly satisfying moments in movies, and the satisfaction is recapitulated and
extended, later on, when Elliott, his older brother, Mike, and Mike's friends, all on
bicycles, escape the federal agents by flying again - across the setting sun, this time.
If one can speak of pure exhilaration, Williams' music, at that moment, has it in spades.
My point in going through this progression is a simple one: John Williams, working with
such directors as Spielberg, George Lucas, Oliver Stone and others, uses music with
considerable delicacy. It's been said many times that Williams' score for Star Wars
signaled a return of the big symphonic sound to Hollywood movies, and this, of course, is
true. After hundreds of soundtracks with pop ballads or rock songs, or just a piano and a
couple of forlorn winds, or music created by a synthesizer - after all that, it was
enormously exciting in the late seventies to suddenly hear the London Symphony in full
throated-roar, its brass and timpani pounding, its strings whirling furiously.
But if John Williams writes very well for full symphony orchestra, he also uses smaller,
more modest means beautifully too. The opening of the Star Wars score has a heroic and
epic cast to it that truly feels like the beginning of a long narrative but once the
initial fanfares and the famous vaunting theme have been exhausted, a single woodwind is
left behind to graze in the fields of orchestral silence, much as a child might be lost in
wonder before the stars.
Over the course of the various Star Wars films, Williams' music has played a major role in
allowing Lucas to express not just bombast and grandiosity, but also more serious emotions
consider the various yearning themes associated with Princess Leia's desire for the
safety of the rebel forces and with Luke's quest for a father, the sinister, jeering,
overbearing music of the Empire, and so on. Not only did Williams' score fasten millions
of young fans to the grand mythic overtones of the story; it fastened Lucas himself to the
mythical and metaphysical notions inherent in his original ideas. The score for the new
Phantom Menace recapitulates some of the trilogy's earlier music, but subtly and
allusively, and there is much that is new as well, including the extraordinary "Duel
of the Fates", in which the chanting chorus is urged on by a furious little motoric
figure in the strings and brass - in all, one of the most exciting things Williams has
ever written.
Most of the time, listening to Williams' many scores, one is aware of his enormous
resourcefulness and professional skill and his way of injecting a little extra edge and
excitement into the occasion before him - the aching loneliness of the trumpet solos, for
instance, in his music for Born on the Fourth of July; or the heart-rending pathos of the
solo violin in Schindler's List; or the scintillating, almost coruscating, brass fanfares
in his "Olympic Theme", which inserts the adrenaline of competition right under
the listener's scalp; or the airy yet slightly sinister music for Home Alone, which exists
half way between Tchaikovsky's sugar-plum-fairy mood in The Nutcracker and the music for a
horror film. And who among us does not recall the muted heroic strains of the brass in
Saving Private Ryan or the strange little duet between the earthlings and the alien ship
in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Williams has a mischievous side that he indulges
only occasionally, but with devastating effect: that notorious rhythmic tugging in the
basses and cellos when the shark appears in Jaws gets reinforced by the brass in a way
that becomes downright terrifying. If you listen to that episode as a piece of music, the
fun of the movie comes back, but so does its vertiginous fear of being pulled under and
consumed. John Williams' music can do that to you.
David Denby
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