MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

John WILLIAMS (b. 1932)
Sound the Bells (?) [2:50] - rec. Sony Studios June 2000
Jaws – ‘Out to Sea’ and ‘Shark Cage Fugue’ (1975) (4:23) - rec. Boston May 1990
Sabrina - Theme (1995) [4:58]with Itzhak Perlman (violin) and Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra. - rec. Pittsburgh 1996
1941 – March (1979) - rec. Boston May 1990
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial – ‘Adventures on Earth’ (1982) [9:47] - rec. Boston May 1990
War Horse – ‘Dartmoor, 1912’ (2011) [3:35] - rec. Sony Studios, March 2011
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – ‘The Adventures of Mutt’ (2008) [3:12] - rec. Sony Studios Feb and March 2008
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – ‘Harry’s Wondrous World (2001) [5:21] - rec. Abbey Road Studios, London September 2001
Elegy for Cello and Orchestra [6:22] Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and the Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles - rec. Sony Studios April 2001
Memoirs of a Geisha – ‘Going to School’ (2005) [2:42] with Yo-Yo Ma - rec. Royce Hall Los Angeles, August 2005
NBC Nightly News Theme ‘The Mission Theme’ (?) [3:30] - rec. Sony Studios June 2000
Schindler’s List Theme (1993) [3:33] Itzhak Perlman (violin) and Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra - rec. Pittsburg 1996.
The Adventures of TinTin – ‘The Adventure Continues’ (2011) [2:58] - rec. Sony Studios, July 2011.
Star Wars – ‘Throne Room and Finale’ (1977) [7:57] - rec. Skywalker Symphony Orchestra Marin County CA, March 1990
Happy Birthday Variations (?) [5:10] Previously unreleased Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles - rec. December 1999
All selections conducted by John Williams
SONY 88691942532 [70:56]

Experience Classicsonline



First-time buyers of John Williams’s film music will find this attractively-priced album an essential bargain. Habitual Williams collectors should note the contents, as above, carefully for they will likely have a large proportion of these selections. The film music selections range from the Jaws and Star Wars music from the 1970s through to the 2012 scores for The Adventures of Tin Tin and War Horse. Enterprisingly, the Jaws selection eschews that celebrated snapping, sinister theme in favour of the bracing and jaunty ‘Out to Sea’ music before darker colours of ‘The Shark Cage’ emerge. No change from the imposing and majestic Star Wars music but then it did raise the hairs on the backs of our necks all those years ago and it did really confirm the name of John Williams amongst the pantheon of first class composers of the genre. I have to admit I was not impressed enough by the Tin Tin music to rush out to buy the soundtrack recording even though its ‘chase music’ was vastly superior to so many similar efforts. Williams’s War Horse music impressed rather more even though the ‘Dartmoor 1912’ selection sounds to be a pastiche of turn-of-the-Century English classical music seasoned with some Gaelic utterances.
 
The two soloists feature strongly. Violinist Itzhak Perlman shone in one of Williams’s most touching and memorable scores, that for Spielberg’s Schindler’s List – that’s included. Perlman also featured as soloist in a 1997 album of film music conducted by John Williams – ‘Cinema Serenade’ which included Williams’s beautiful romantic music from the 1995 remake of Sabrina; it is here too but I have to say I much preferred the original soundtrack version which featured a piano solo. The cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, was the soloist in the Williams Seven Years in Tibet score. It marked the beginning of a collaboration between the composer and cellist; and included on this album is the exotic colourful yet also the cello-made-poignant Memoirs of a Geisha. Turning from film music, Yo-Yo Ma features as soloist in John Williams’s heartfelt Elegy for Cello and Orchestra.
 
Still with Williams’s concert pieces, the programme opens with his joyous, celebratory Sound the Bells. Equally imposing is the busy, thunderous ‘The Mission Theme’ created for NBC Nightly News which sounds as though it might have escaped from an Indiana Jones movie. The album closes with John Williams tongue-in-cheek Happy Birthday Variations (was he lampooning Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra?)
 
Happy Birthday John and thanks for so much wonderful music.
 
A nice nostalgic trip. But read the contents list carefully before purchasing.


 
Ian Lace


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.