For fans of John Williams’ film music, Jaws 2 has always been on that wish list for an expanded treatment.  Though Jaws (1975) itself was the score that began a string of great work for the composer, the score for the 1978 sequel has a great deal more of delightful musical writing blended with drama and that infamous motif.  It is also a bed of Williams’ musical style that populates most every score he worked on into the early 1980s.

There is a lot more Herrmann in this score that can be better appreciated in this new Intrada release.  The opening main titles and tracks like “Ballet for Divers” recall some of Hermann’s Beneath the 12-Mile Reef.  The music features a bit more large-scale orchestral swaths of sound and interplay that appeared in Williams’ own Close Encounters score (“The Water Kite” features just such a moment in its central section and “Boats in Danger” has equally interesting rhythmic ideas found in that other score).  There is also more interplay of the motif and dramatic writing that one finds in the action sequences of the more popular Star Wars films of the period.  “The Water Skier/Fire on Board” is one of these moments where both come together coupled with some great dissonant writing.  The comedic touches of “The Menu” additionally find their roots in the composer’s sci-fi opus, and earlier comedy scores.  Big seafaring gestures also are great hallmarks of this score which first appears in the delightful “Sailing”, “More Boating”, and “The Open Sea”.  The score overall works quite well on its own, and perhaps even more so than its predecessor.  (That is until one has a chance to hear it in a cleaner restoration issued concurrently on Intrada.)

Surprisingly, the original score album served this music fairly well with about 20 minutes more now being made available for the first time here.  Intrada has included five alternate takes on disc one to help fill out that album.  Disc two is a straight reissue of the 1978 MCA release albeit remastered with improved sound quality.  What is possible now for fans of the original release is to hear how the music was re-edited from the score material.  Now we can hear some of the restored measures and segues that were omitted for the commercial release.  This allows for a fascinating glimpse at the way cues like “Brody Misunderstood” were adapted to shape the listening experience.  The cue is another of those classic Americana-tinged emotional cues.  Equally instructive is to hear some of this familiar music returned to its narrative order.  It certainly adds to the emotional power of the climactic “The Big Jolt”, set up slightly in “More Teeth”, which is extended into a six-minute musical sequence.

Intrada’s release of Jaws 2, and Jaws for that matter, this Fall was a wonderful gift to fans of Williams’ 1970s scores.  Both have stellar sound improvements that allow for gorgeous sound at times and expanded aural range that feels properly warmed.  The main disc here is the real find with a great blend of beautiful music, seafaring moments, and the ever-present menace that allows for some interesting dissonant writing and even some fascinating rhythmic action music.  There does not really need to perhaps be a review to convince anyone to pick up this score.  But more interestingly, Jaws 2 is a score filled with many classic Williams’ signature phrasing and orchestral ideas coupled with interesting thematic development.  It is what made the original soundtrack release one of the better albums of the time.  Intrada also has Alan Parker’s work on the beginning of additional cash-ins, Jaws 3D.

G. Gabrieli: Selections from the Sacrae Symphoniae; Williams: Music for Brass
National Brass Ensemble/Gail Williams, Joseph Alessi, Michael Mulcahy,
Yasuhito Sugiyama, James Somerville, Michael Sachs,
Oberlin Music OC 15-04
Total Time:  68:29
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

For many brass players, a classic 1968 album of music from Giovanni Gabrieli’s (ca. 1555-1612) Symphoniae inspired them to consider becoming musicians.  These late-Renaissaince/early-Baroque acoustically amazing pieces are full of polychoral writing for brass and lots of call and echo effects in pieces that perhaps are really motets or anthems without words.  Usually as the year winds down, labels like to populate the shelves with brass music and among them Gabrieli’s work often figures prominently.  A couple years ago, we looked at a Pentatone release of his music and there is more detail there about his work.

The present release hearkens back though to that late 1960s one that featured brass players from three of America’s premiere orchestras (Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia).  The National Brass Ensemble has gone a few steps further by inviting 26 musicians from the top nine orchestras to come together to make this recording which was conceived back in 2011 at a Brass Symposium.  Rather than simply reuse existing arrangements of Gabrieli’s work, the group chose Tim Higgins, principal trombone with the San Francisco Symphony, to prepare the music.  Higgins returned to the original sources in out-of-print scores in their original notation thus creating in a sense “world premieres” of these pieces in essence to honor that Columbia release, The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli.

The results here are simply marvelous.  Full brass sound, in clearly delineated lines allows for the music to unfold as each piece unfolds.  The recording also allows for a fine balance that separates the “choirs” well without feeling overly gimmicky.  Nine canzons make up half of program with the sort of fanfare-like music one generally associates with Gabrieli.  But then there are some truly beautiful settings of pieces like “Buccinate in Neomemia”, “O Magnum Mysterium”, “Hic est Filius Dei”, a “Magnificat” (featuring some fascinating harmonic shifts in its final pages), “Sancta Maria”, and an “Exaudi me Domine”.  The result is an almost worshipful album of brass music that explores the different colors of these instruments beautifully.

For many, the treat of hearing these pieces practically fresh and in such gorgeous performances will be enough.  However, as a bit of an “encore”, the group has recorded a piece specially written for them by film composer John Williams, Music for Brass (2014).  This is a really brief “encore”-like addition to the disc by a composer who has certainly provided many memorable brass fanfares and settings.  This one too adds timpani and percussion to the brass choir.  This one begins with a bit of nervous energy reminiscent of some of the lighter and big action styles of the composer and then moves into a brief dissonant patch before a more “modern” style often found in the concert works.  The virtuosic displays really help the ensemble shine here as the music moves through a few moods and with great rhythmic vitality.  It is a really exciting work that even manages to hint at the more familiar fanfares and other brass work one has found in Williams’ action scores.  That said, it is a true showpiece for the ensemble and it is pulled off superbly here!