March 30, 2015

  • Williams for Solo Instruments

    The music of John Williams is often noted for its grand orchestral sound so a collection of solo instruments and piano is going to strike some as a bit unusual at first.  However, there have been over the years a number of chamber music transcriptions of Williams’ film themes for solo wind or strings with piano, or string quartet.  These recordings often tend to highlight the sensitive melodic writing and occasionally can help hear some of the interesting harmonic support that Williams provides these often famous melodies.  BSX Records has now released a new collection of live performances of various familiar, and perhaps less so, arrangements in this often gorgeous new release.

    Composer Dan Redfield has carefully culled together a number of interesting thematic ideas here in this new BSX release.  Many of them are published arrangements by Williams himself and were adapted from his Cinema Serenade releases with Itzhak Perlman.  A good number of the pieces here are performed with violinist Elizabeth Hedman.  She manages to coax an often very rich tone from her instrument which is on gorgeous display in the lower register.  Her performances of the three selections from Schindler’s List have a rather reflective and languid quality, sometimes feeling just a tad under tempo, but the playing is still quite gorgeous.  “The Chairman Waltz” (Memoirs of a Geisha) fares quite well in this setting as does the main theme from The Patriot, which are two of the highlights from her contribution here.  A slower tempo for the main theme from Sabrina sometimes zaps the music of its forward energy at times and higher registral notes are just a little flat at times.  The end credit music from Dracula tends to suffer from slow tempo as well.  A couple of additional curiosities are included here starting with Williams’ arrangement of “Por Una Cabeza” by Carlos Gardel (another of those which appeared on his pops violin releases) and a bit of music from Fiddler on the Roof.  The latter allows some great virtuosic display.  The relaxed tempos do show off the beautiful, lyrical tone of Hedman’s instrument.  The recording venue does not always seem to flatter the music the performances as well all the time.

    The venue appears to have changed David Washburn’s trumpet solos in the music from JFK and Monsignor.  Both of these themes lay very well in these arrangements by Dan Redfield.  The latter is a particularly nice theme to revisit this underappreciated score and the former is a beautiful rendition.  A clarinet arrangement of “Viktor’s Tale” from The Terminal is featured after the Schindler’s List music and this playful quality of Donald T. Foster’s performance helps ease the emotional tension so well created by the opening three tracks.  The disc ends with a gorgeous performance of “Where Dreams Are Born” (A.I.)—the vocalise setting of what would be translated into “For Always”.  This arrangement works very well to show off this melody but there is not much for the piano to do other than noodle about underneath.

    Fans of Williams’ music should enjoy this collection of themes as there are some unique choices.  Also very wise was allowing different instrumental, and vocal, solo settings to be incorporated into this release.  The result is a series of performances that really explore the emotional depth of these wonderful film themes with just a couple of upbeat moments to keep things from feeling to similar over the course of the presentation.