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Winner of five Academy Awards and nominated, to date, for
41 Oscars, John Williams is one of the most respected contemporary
cinema composers and certainly one of the most famous. Silva
Screen's latest release pays tribute to the man whose music
has thrilled cinema audiences across the globe for the last
40 years.
I
first came across the work of John Williams as a teenager
when I bought the original soundtrack recording to Raiders
of the Lost Ark. I was instantly hooked on his music which
not only added romance, danger and numerous other elements
to the movies it accompanied, but when listened to alone could
arouse emotions to rival some of the greatest classical composers.
Those where my feelings as a young adolescent and I have to
say that, for a lot of Williams' work, this opinion still
rings true.
I
still get out some of Williams' older albums from time to
time - in fact Silva Screen launched an extended recording
of Raiders of the Lost Ark a few years ago and there
are also new 2-disc sets for the first three Star Wars
movies.
It's
also good to see some of Williams' lesser known work including
Always (an album I have being trying to get hold of
for a number of years) and The Witches of Eastwick,
as well as some of his later scores including his work on
the Harry Potter movies, Minority Report and
Saving Private Ryan.
While
these new recordings are almost indistinguishable from the
original recordings, they are not all labelled as the original
tracks were. For example, one track taken from Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom is listed as Mine Car
Chase, but it also incorporates the track Nocturnal
Activities from the album.
The
main problem with compilation albums is that the tracks chosen
for each movie don't always represent the best tracks. Thankfully,
on the whole, that is not the case with this collection -
although it would have been refreshing to have seen the inclusion
of tracks other than the main themes for movies like Raiders
of the Lost Ark (although there is another Raiders
track on this compilation) and Superman. These have
been done to death on movie compilations and it is always
nice to be able to appreciate something of the score other
than the familiar theme.
This
collection is about as close to the original recordings as
you are going to get and while not all of the music will be
to your liking, there is bound to be enough material on here
that you will want to keep in your collection. And at well
under £20 that's less than £5 a CD. And that alone
makes this a must buy.
Darren
Rea
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£15.99
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