August 11, 2017
-
John Williams for Piano
John Williams celebrated his 85th birthday this past February and this has fortunately led to a number of releases celebrating the composer (including one from Sony earlier this year exploring his Spielberg scores). This new Varese release is more a classically-conceived album that features Simone Pedroni performing some 78 minutes of music. He was the Gold Medalist of the Ninth International Van Cliburn Piano Competition (1993) which, at the age of 24, launched his international career. He more recently was the conductor for some of the Star Wars: A Musical Journey concerts in Italy. In this new compilation he plays a blend of his own transcriptions and those by Williams as well.
Williams compiled two suites of his music for Lincoln and The Book Thief. In this setting, stripped of its orchestral colors, the music for Lincoln falls in line with piano music that hovers between 19th-Century period style and something more akin to Roy Harris. Of course, for completists, it is worth noting that there is some music from both these suites that appears for the first time. Some of these moments are given added virtuosic “expansions” by Pedroni.
At the center are several pieces one finds in piano collections of Williams’ published music. This includes the beautiful theme from Sabrina, “Remembering Carolyn” (Presumed Innocent), and selections from the early Star Wars films: The Empire Strikes Back (“The Asteroid Field”, transcribed here by Pedroni) and Return of the Jedi (“Luke and Leia”). The theme from Schindler’s List serves as a little encore for The Book Thief.
The album is rounded off by selections from the Harry Potter films. “Fluffy’s Harp” is perhaps the oddest of the choices from the first film. “A Window to the Past” and “Aunt Marge’s Waltz” bring us back to some more familiar ground to wrap things up. One is struck sometimes at the way Williams’ music manages to pull from the grand styles of 19th-Century music with blends of modern harmony. This stands out the most in some of these Harry Potter moments. Prokofiev is not far off either in the action music of “The Asteroid Field” or even in the aforementioned waltz.
Pedroni obviously loves this music and plays it with a great deal of passion, expressiveness, and perhaps a touch of reckless abandon in rapid passage work. One needs to perhaps suspend their expectations that these are piano reductions of the scores themselves and more interpretations of some of these moments. It makes this a rather unique album that is certainly filled with selections that are less recorded in their orchestral versions and that alone makes this an attractive release which is a limited edition of 1000 copies.
Comments (1)
Have love THE Mr. John Williams; music for decades long, and have always wondered If he had ever done any arrangement of portions of his score, bsides the John Williams Anthology, which I have owned 4 a number of years. Being a pianist of some ability I still struggle with "The Forest Battle" from the Star Wars sequel, "The Return of the Jedi," and just love going through so many of them, including the love them from "The Accidental Tourist," one of my personal favorites, among others of course. ALSO, I don't mind at all, being asked form time 2 time if I am related to THE John Williams, and am also proud to state that I have composed, mostly songs, but at times thematc material, that likely has some genesis in what I have listened to from John. By the way I was named 4 my dad and his, both of whom were John C. Wiiliams, I being the third (III). Best Wishes!!
Comments are closed.