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Review of American Journey (John Williams)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you seek a safe and impressive collection of many of
John Williams' most prominent concert works up to 2002.
Avoid it... if you expect the composer to transcend his predictable sense of Americana spirit and write music that truly merges the sounds of many cultures.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
American Journey: (John Williams) When the people
of the United States need a single composer or conductor to rally their
spirits, who better than the venerable John Williams? One of the truly
interesting aspects of Williams' career since the 1980's has been his
ability to balance his artistic skills between both the scoring stage
and the concert hall. His soundtracks for feature films are often
best-sellers, as are his concert works, which sell equally well to
collectors of classical music. He has, more than any other composer,
infused modern film music with a sense of classical style, complex
layers of orchestration, and a newly defined sense of tradition. With
such a diverse resume of popular works, Williams has been called upon
several times to write themes for the Olympic Games hosted by the United
States. His popular theme for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta was
the centerpiece of yet another best-selling album for Williams. In early
2002, with the country's nerves on edge because of the previous year's
terrorist attacks, the maestro was called upon once again to lift the
American spirit and provide a bold rallying cry for the Winter Olympics
in Salt Lake City, Utah. The resulting album contains a collection of
other concert works of Americana inspiration by Williams, culminating in
a product that is simply summarized with title of "American Journey."
The album opens with a November, 2001, concert performance of the
Olympic theme for Salt Lake City's event, "Call of the Champions" (which
was the title of the album in foreign pressings). Unlike "Summon the
Heroes," the theme for the 1996 game, "Call of the Champions" is
performed by a prevailing local orchestra and choir, adding more depth
and local significance to the recording. The piece is an arguably more
impressive composition than the 1996 one, though it has lost some of the
Roman and Greek-like historical appeal in the brass section that the
previous theme featured with nobility. After the main 2002 attraction,
the album continues with the six-part inspiration for the title of the
album, "American Journey." The twenty-five or so minutes of this work
was written for a multimedia presentation assembled for the Millennium
celebrations supervised by Steven Spielberg in Washington D.C. a few
years prior.
Each movement of the "American Journey" suite deals with another aspect of American history or culture portrayed in the presentation. The remaining selections on the album are odds and ends from both Williams' recent and not-so-recent specialty concert recordings. The "Song for World Peace" was written for a musical director and friend of Williams and performed by the Boston Pops. That piece, as well as "Sound the Bells!" (which was composed for a marriage in the Japanese Royal Family), were first performed in Tokyo a few years prior to this release. The "Hymn to New England," "Celebrate Discovery," and "Jubilee 350" pieces were composed as individual concert works for the Boston Pops through the years. The "Mission Theme" for NBC news is the most widely known piece on the album, dating back to the 1980's and needing no further explanation. Fan reaction to this album, like all of the other Williams concert compilations, has been positive, keeping it sailing off the shelves at an initially brisk pace. In the United States, that is. Williams' concert pieces are always a joy to hear, and his consistent excellence in thematic and orchestral intensity makes this album no less of an easy listening experience. There are no particularly weak tracks, nor are there any interruptions in the quality of the recordings. In these respects, the album is both flawless and a safe purchase. The actual compositions, however, came under more scrutiny than perhaps Williams' others, and the arguments against his lack of stylistic originality and diversity in instrumentation picked up a fair amount of steam at the time. It was an argument that didn't receive much attention until Williams' much anticipated score for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone originally failed to be the explosive hit that most had hoped for, a partial failure attributed (by many) to the seeming fact that Williams was simply recycling too much of his own material. The same argument regarding regurgitation could be made about many of the concert works on the "American Journey" album. The "Immigration and Building" piece contains passages obviously lifted directly from the score for Far and Away. The "Civil Rights and Women's Movement" piece, among a few others, mirrors the noble tones of The Patriot. Some have even debated the similarities between the "Mission Theme" and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Williams' famous theme for the "Amazing Stories" series. In short, the sum of the argument against Williams is that he is blinded by his own sense of Americana and is incapable of writing a truly international concert. So deeply rooted in his Western classical styles, he might be incapable of capturing the multi-cultural spirit of the Olympics and, especially, in pieces that are supposedly dedicated to world peace. In these regards, Williams's music is just as much a symbol of America as McDonald's and Coca-Cola, and for him to compose "world" music is a potentially irritating prospect to many people of other cultures. Because of this blatant style of American bombast that saturates the entirety of this collection of music, some referred to the "Call of the Champions" theme as "Call of the Americans" or even "Call of the Bomb-Sniffing Dogs." There really is nothing international about any of the music on this album, including the themes for the two Olympics, with the instrumentation limited to the stereotypical orchestra, choir, and large bells and chimes that best represent the composer's very comfortable sense of community. Even within the United States, Williams' style is distinctly tied to the East Coast, with the bulk of his efforts in tribute to New England, New York and the traditions of music unique in those regions of the country. The "American Journey" suite has nothing, for instance, to musically represent California or the Rocky Mountain region. Is any of this really a problem? Well, that depends on whether you think Williams' job in writing the Olympics material was to encompass the sounds of many different world cultures. If so, then perhaps a composer like Mychael Danna would be a better fit. Williams is ultimately a product of American patriotism, however, and for most listeners, the socio-political implications of the music won't be important. It is wholesome, entertaining music either way, and the sound quality from each of the recording venues is, as usual for Williams' concert albums, equally resounding. Ultimately, it's hard not to once again be attracted to the "Mission Theme" for NBC News as the highlight of the product. It's an enduring piece that remained appropriate given the NBC network's long contract to broadcast the games. Overall, if you can separate the music from its intended meaning and lack of cultural diversity, this album is an impressive collection of many of Williams' most prominent concert works. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 60:53
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes extensive credits and a note about each selection by
Jackson Braider of WGBH Radio.
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