John Williams
25 products
Antonio Pappano - Complete Santa Cecilia Symphonic,Concertante & Sacred Music Recordings
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
STAR WARS: RISE OF SKYWALKER
MOON RIVER: THE VERY BEST OF A
THE ESSENTIAL ANDY WILLIAMS
John Williams Reimagined
John Williams Reimagined is a project of film score producer Robert Townson, who imagined an album where John Williams famous film themes are scored for a chamber trio of flute: Sara Andon, cello: Cécilia Tsan and piano: Simone Pedroni. A double album with hits, spanning a period of more than 50 years of terrific film music from Jane Eyre to the recent The Fabelmans and including, ET, Star Wars, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park.
The Music Of America: John Williams
Discs 1 and 2 address the concert hall world with the occasional departure. The third takes us on an exhilarating romp through the film music firmament - a world he has sent spinning and glittering. Williams has a marvellously piercing emotive touch that cuts through even a pachyderm's insensitivity. I recall for example coming out of a 1998 cinema showing of Saving Private Ryan with tears streaming down my face: the music and images intensify each other.
CD 1
Air and Simple Gifts was written for the Obama inauguration and is laid out for cello, piano, violin and clarinet. It keys into the same material that gripped Copland but imparts to it the fruity density of Howells' Piano Quartet. American Journey is a series of touching and sometimes portentous vignettes of the history of the USA. There's a dash of Copland in Popular Entertainment and of Saving Private Ryan in Immigration and Building and Flight and Technology, of Glass and Reich in Arts and Sports. The two worlds come into an even more candid collision - or collusion - in the Suite for Memoirs of a Geisha in which Yo-Yo Ma is soloist - such is John Williams' pull. The writing is roundedly impassioned. Ma's cello is wonderfully sonorous and singingly delicate in Going to School. It is an engrossingly fine score, full of delicate effects that steer well clear of kitsch Chinoiserie. The Song for World Peace - now there's a gauntlet thrown down. It is in fact a slow and satisfying evolutionary ascent to majestic heights.
CD 2
Summon the Heroes has the odd drum salvo and brass blast redolent of a certain Copland Fanfare. It all works well and there is something of the Superman score to it too. Odd that the Utah Symphony are conducted by the composer for Hymn to New England - it’s another skilled fanfare relieved by soft contoured undulating string writing. Sound The Bells is another eager and dazzlingly bright fanfare piece.
The Five Sacred Trees is a fine bassoon concerto - a sort of Celtic counterpart to The Geisha suite written at a time when things Celtic were in the ascendant: from Riverdance to Titanic. Craeb Uisnig and Dathi have a considerable insurgency of dissonance which we will again encounter on CD 3 in Born on the Fourth of July and the music for Close Encounters.
Elegy is a short heartfelt piece, here played by Yo-Yo Ma. It is in Geisha Suite mode. It’s a fine addition to the concert repertoire; any cellist contender for BBC Young Musician of the Year and similar should consider it as a contest piece.
The game and indefatigable Mission Theme will be known to Americans as the music for NBC Nightly News. March from the quirky film 1941 is Yankee-doodle rambunctious and not short on brazen confidence. The Olympic Spirit embodies the surging flag-waving of the stadium and especially the spectacle of the opening ceremonies.
CD 3
This disc is the deliverer of instant and usually uncomplicated enjoyment. While Williams clearly does obeisance to Herrmann’s North by North-West in Jaws and to Holst’s Planets in the Star Wars main title, his musical wizardry delivers time after time. Elite orchestras directed by the composer are everywhere and that's also true for the harmonica-dominated score for Sugarland Express. Toots Thielemans brings out the down-South and dirty Galahadry of the music reminiscent of a composer we never hear of these days: Bill Russo. Russo had at least two major pieces on DG LPs in the 1970s. The Flying Theme is done broadly and with intoxicating eagerness - a touch of Disney here, I fancy. The suite of three movements from Born on the Fourth of July is from a deeper, tougher vein with the gears of disillusion fully engaged cog by cog. Oily dissonance is strongly drawn in as it is also in the Ligeti-style Close Encounters. Perlman's version of the theme from Schindler's List is all throaty emotion - old gold glowing in auburn embers. A quick outing from the Theme from Jurassic Park has Williams taking us from still and unprepossessing ruminations into that broad optimism-loaded string hymn which he took onwards to a further peak in Saving Private Ryan. Cadillac of the Skies from Empire of the Sun comes complete with angelic choir here provided by the Bostonians rather than by Hollywood. The rambunctious Raiders March is wild and woolly with its Waltonian eddies and under-currents. More of the similar in The Throne Room and Finale from Star Wars - total immersion. It is perhaps a little cheese-cakey in its revelling in victory of the worthy over the wicked. Hats off to one of film music’s Greats: John Williams. Here's to the next 100 films.
-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
Angela's Ashes
Producers include: John Williams.
Principally recorded at Sony Pictures Scoring Stage, Culver City, California. Includes liner notes by Alan Parker.
ANGELA'S ASHES was nominated for the 1999 Academy Awards For Best Original Score.
"Theme From Angela's Ashes" won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition.
LINCOLN
What If Mozart Wrote "Roll Over Beethoven"? / Hampton
Roderick Williams: Sacred Choral Works
Williams: Digital Animation
Latin-American Classics - A. Williams: Music for Piano Vol 2
Chris Williams: Songs Of The Coromandel Coast
WILLIAMS, H.: Whale Nation (Unabridged)
WILLIAMS: Piano Music, Vol. 1
Grace Williams: Chamber Music
The Legacy of Mary Lou Williams
Stained Glass Windows / Messiah College Chamber Players
The Messiah College Wind Ensemble, under the baton of conductor Bradley Genevro presents this collection of tracks for wind ensemble. Songs include "Victory Fanfare," "Luminosity," "Fantasia for Alto Saxophone," "For the Beauty of the Earth," and more (Klavier)
John Williams for Band / Bands of the United States Armed Forces
John Williams for Band is performed and recorded by the Bands of the United States Armed Forces. Selections include “Sounds the Bells,” “The Cowboys Overture,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” “Music from The Patriot,” “Yoda’s Theme & Main Theme” from the Star Wars Trilogy, “Adventures on Earth,” from E.T. and many more rousing works.
Vaughan Williams
Vaughan-Williams Tina Louise Cayouette, viola Six Studies in English Folksong, etc.
Composer's Collection - Vaughan Williams / Corporon, Et Al
Includes work(s) by various composers.
A Vaughan Williams Anthology
Ralph Vaughan Williams is one of Britain’s most illustrious composers, and this specially curated selection of works demonstrates the sheer breadth of his achievement. As a major 20th century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in critically acclaimed recordings (‘A clear top recommendation’ wrote Gramophone of A Sea Symphony). Popular orchestral works such as the celebrated Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime Mass in G minor shows the composer’s high standing in the English choral tradition.
REVIEW:
More Vaughan Williams—and very welcome, too. While admirers may favour other performances, every take here on the composer’s exquisite scores is more than competitive. This curated selection of works is a measure of RVW’s achievements. As a major 20th-century symphonist he is represented by four of his nine symphonies, all in much-praised recordings, while winning orchestral works such as the celebrated Tallis Fantasia and The Lark Ascending are also included. Vaughan Williams’ chamber works are performed by the Maggini Quartet, his greatest contemporary champions; while the sublime Mass in G minor is a solid addition.
-- Classical CD Source (Barry Forshaw)
A John Williams Celebration / Perlman, Dudamel, LA
For the 2014-15 Opening Night Concert and Gala, the Los Angeles Philharmonic paid loving tribute to the composer, long a champion and close friend of the LA Phil. Gustavo Dudamel, an awestruck fan of the musical icon, led the orchestra in a cross-section of Maestro Williams’s matchless canon.
A JOHN WILLIAMS CELEBRATION featuring works from:
Olympic Fanfare and Theme
Schindler’s List
Fiddler on the Roof
Soundings
Catch Me If You Can
Star Wars
Amistad
Jaws
The Empire Strikes Back
Itzhak Perlman, violin
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
Recorded at Walt Disney Concert Hall, USA, 2014
Bonus: Interviews with John Williams, Gustavo Dudamel, and Itzhak Perlman
Running time: 85 mins (concert) + 18 mins (bonus)
Subtitles: German, French, Spanish, Korean
Booklet: English, German, French
Picture: NTSC, 16:9
Audio: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1
Region Code: 0 (worldwide)
