{"product_id":"the-music-of-america-john-williams-53044","title":"The Music Of America: John Williams","description":"Like it or not John Williams has dominated silver-screen culture since the 1990s. His cinema music is often the film; the film is often the music. There is a concert dimension to his work as there was also for his great idols - Rozsa, Korngold, Waxman and Herrmann. On this album we encounter both faces and realise there is no great chasm between them. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  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  \u003ci\u003eSaving Private Ryan\u003c\/i\u003e with tears streaming down my face: the music and images intensify each other. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  CD 1 \u003cbr\u003e   \u003ci\u003eAir and Simple Gifts\u003c\/i\u003e 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.  \u003ci\u003eAmerican Journey\u003c\/i\u003e is a series of touching and sometimes portentous vignettes of the history of the USA. There's a dash of Copland in  \u003ci\u003ePopular Entertainment\u003c\/i\u003e and of  \u003ci\u003eSaving Private Ryan\u003c\/i\u003e in  \u003ci\u003eImmigration and Building\u003c\/i\u003e and  \u003ci\u003eFlight and Technology\u003c\/i\u003e, of Glass and Reich in  \u003ci\u003eArts and Sports\u003c\/i\u003e. The two worlds come into an even more candid collision - or collusion - in the  \u003ci\u003eSuite for Memoirs of a Geisha\u003c\/i\u003e 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  \u003ci\u003eGoing to School\u003c\/i\u003e. It is an engrossingly fine score, full of delicate effects that steer well clear of kitsch Chinoiserie.  \u003ci\u003eThe Song for World Peace\u003c\/i\u003e - now there's a gauntlet thrown down. It is in fact a slow and satisfying evolutionary ascent to majestic heights. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  CD 2 \u003cbr\u003e   \u003ci\u003eSummon the Heroes\u003c\/i\u003e has the odd drum salvo and brass blast redolent of a certain Copland  \u003ci\u003eFanfare\u003c\/i\u003e. It all works well and there is something of the  \u003ci\u003eSuperman\u003c\/i\u003e score to it too. Odd that the Utah Symphony are conducted by the composer for  \u003ci\u003eHymn to New England\u003c\/i\u003e - it’s another skilled fanfare relieved by soft contoured undulating string writing.  \u003ci\u003eSound The Bells\u003c\/i\u003e is another eager and dazzlingly bright fanfare piece. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  The  \u003ci\u003eFive Sacred Trees\u003c\/i\u003e is a fine bassoon concerto - a sort of Celtic counterpart to  \u003ci\u003eThe Geisha\u003c\/i\u003e suite written at a time when things Celtic were in the ascendant: from  \u003ci\u003eRiverdance\u003c\/i\u003e to  \u003ci\u003eTitanic\u003c\/i\u003e.  \u003ci\u003eCraeb Uisnig\u003c\/i\u003e and  \u003ci\u003eDathi\u003c\/i\u003e have a considerable insurgency of dissonance which we will again encounter on CD 3 in  \u003ci\u003eBorn on the Fourth of July\u003c\/i\u003e and the music for  \u003ci\u003eClose Encounters\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e   \u003ci\u003eElegy\u003c\/i\u003e is a short heartfelt piece, here played by Yo-Yo Ma. It is in  \u003ci\u003eGeisha Suite\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  The game and indefatigable  \u003ci\u003eMission Theme\u003c\/i\u003e will be known to Americans as the music for NBC Nightly News.  \u003ci\u003eMarch\u003c\/i\u003e from the quirky film  \u003ci\u003e1941\u003c\/i\u003e is Yankee-doodle rambunctious and not short on brazen confidence.  \u003ci\u003eThe Olympic Spirit\u003c\/i\u003e embodies the surging flag-waving of the stadium and especially the spectacle of the opening ceremonies. \u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e  CD 3 \u003cbr\u003e  This disc is the deliverer of instant and usually uncomplicated enjoyment. While Williams clearly does obeisance to Herrmann’s  \u003ci\u003eNorth by North-West\u003c\/i\u003e in  \u003ci\u003eJaws\u003c\/i\u003e and to Holst’s  \u003ci\u003ePlanets\u003c\/i\u003e in the  \u003ci\u003eStar Wars\u003c\/i\u003e 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  \u003ci\u003eSugarland Express\u003c\/i\u003e. 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.  \u003ci\u003eThe Flying Theme\u003c\/i\u003e is done broadly and with intoxicating eagerness - a touch of Disney here, I fancy. The suite of three movements from  \u003ci\u003eBorn on the Fourth of July\u003c\/i\u003e 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  \u003ci\u003eClose Encounters\u003c\/i\u003e. Perlman's version of the theme from  \u003ci\u003eSchindler's List\u003c\/i\u003e is all throaty emotion - old gold glowing in auburn embers. A quick outing from the  \u003ci\u003eTheme from Jurassic Park\u003c\/i\u003e 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  \u003ci\u003eSaving Private Ryan\u003c\/i\u003e.  \u003ci\u003eCadillac of the Skies\u003c\/i\u003e from  \u003ci\u003eEmpire of the Sun\u003c\/i\u003e comes complete with angelic choir here provided by the Bostonians rather than by Hollywood. The rambunctious  \u003ci\u003eRaiders March\u003c\/i\u003e is wild and woolly with its Waltonian eddies and under-currents. More of the similar in  \u003ci\u003eThe Throne Room and Finale\u003c\/i\u003e from  \u003ci\u003eStar Wars\u003c\/i\u003e - 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.   \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e -- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Sony Masterworks","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":46039767417066,"sku":"886977063626","price":19.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0614\/3423\/3066\/files\/4316498-3145200.jpg?v=1778809700","url":"https:\/\/arkivmusic.com\/products\/the-music-of-america-john-williams-53044","provider":"ArkivMusic","version":"1.0","type":"link"}