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As has become customary in all of the reviews of John Williams' new scores of the 2010's, the mere persistence of superior music for the screen from a man in his mid-80's remains a primary point of commendation right off the bat. Regardless of how much of a personal connection you find between your own musical tastes and Williams' prancing children's mode of writing in The BFG, there must endure admiration for his continued use of pencil and paper to crank out these ambitious scores. In the case of The BFG, the maestro's own care for complex orchestrations is on full display, the work demanding some of the most difficult woodwind performances ever heard in his career. It should serve as inspiration to every young composer to witness Williams at his age, sitting at a piano with a pencil, without the aid of common composition software and a team of ghostwriting arrangers, conjuring music of more intricately crafted orchestral colors than anyone with the aid of the modern tools of ease. To compare The BFG to any contemporary competition from younger composers is, perhaps, unfair, because Williams' writing style is so singular and reminiscent of arguably better days for film music in general. But more interesting is the difficulty that even his collectors may have in nailing down a precise point of comparison for this score in Williams own career. Some listeners have mentioned the Harry Potter scores, Home Alone, Hook, The Adventures of Tintin, and, most obviously, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in the description of the loftier, fanciful side of The BFG, while astute ears with a preference for the maestro's more devious side will hear hints of The Witches of Eastwick, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Dracula, and The Fury in the score's darker passages. While all of these comparisons are apt, the intriguing aspect of The BFG is that it really doesn't reflect much of any single Williams score of the past in its entirety, instead serving as a survey of the composer's sensitive children's motifs and waltz-inspired rhythmic formations in a more general sense. Perhaps no other score in Williams' career better falls into the innocent whimsy of the "children's genre" than this one. As such, The BFG is something of a hit or miss prospect for listeners expecting more overtly accessible gravitas from the composer.

Mastery of orchestration is certainly the main attraction in Williams' work for The BFG. The woodwind performances required by the composition are exquisite, and the flute in particular is the representing instrument of dreams throughout the story. Trombones and bassoons, meanwhile, represent the frightful elements of nightmares and evil giants. The piano, expectedly, conveys the heart of the main character, Sophie. Stately strings and French horns respectfully carry the concept of the monarchy in conservative fashion. But it's the flute that steals the show in The BFG, the "Dream Jars" cue alone serving as inspiration for any ambitious flutist as multiples of the instrument flutter effortlessly in seemingly disparate but extraordinarily effective lines of performance. Williams approached the score as if it were a musical of sorts, his dance sequences often making use of waltz rhythms and the instruments intended to convey a sense of physical movement in their inflection. Therein lies both the success of The BFG and the reason why it fails to connect with some casual listeners. Its defining airiness, yielding themes of fanciful aloofness that never touch the ground with their feet, may defy, for some listeners, the fact that the score is immensely tuneful. Williams wrote seemingly countless major themes and minor motifs for the picture, and yet don't be surprised if most of them go completely unnoticed by typical moviegoers. The main theme for Sophie is present throughout the score, heard first 12 seconds into the "Overture" and receiving the usual Williams string and horn treatment around wild flute lines. The repetition of the theme's initial six note-phrase is key to allowing the composer to reference just this portion of the theme in several cues as a quick reprise of identity. Introducing this theme in "Overture" and "Sophie and the BFG" is the flute and harp-aided motif for the fantasy of the concept as a whole, developing in "Dream Country," "Dream Jars," and "Blowing Dreams" into a very elusive idea for the dreams themselves. Conversely, the nightmare theme is quite memorable (this is perhaps Williams making the point that we remember our nightmares far more readily than our dreams), and expect this highlight of the score to snatch your attention at 0:47 (and thereafter) into "Sophie's Nightmare" and in "The Queen's Dream." This nasty muted trumpet idea is Williams' menacing, bass-droning application to the work, providing the only enticingly sinister element to the equation.

The reason Williams' The BFG may not readily attract listeners is because its thematic performances lack resonance. The maestro's scores are at their most majestic when he unleashes full ensemble tonal harmony with deep bass string, trombone, and bassoon resonance in the bass region while other elements explore flowing melodies on top. Such performances simply don't exist in such extroverted fashion in The BFG. Rather, enthusiasts of Williams' more mysterious and elegantly dark themes are left with just the three or four relatively short performances of the nightmare theme and a traveling motif of sorts for the friendly giant heard best at 1:03 into "The Giant Country" and 2:52 into "There was a Boy." These passages represent the clearest connections to the more menacing side of the composer's Harry Potter scores, plucked bass strings and all. Among other secondary ideas is one of regal importance for the element of the monarchy, hinted in "Blowing Dreams" but foreshadowing Sophie's destiny with clarity at 1:28 into "Sophie's Future." While this idea sounds like a leftover from Hook in its soft, string-led, aspirational tone, it transforms into a rather stuffy element of the throne in "Meeting the Queen." It should be noted that some of this material for the Queen by Williams was replaced by Spielberg with traditional source music. A theme for the evil giants is potentially a comical misstep by Williams, taking trombones into tuba territory during "Fleshlumpeater" for another seeming pull of style from Hook and Home Alone. Most of these themes are presented in Williams' end title piece, "Sophie and the BFG," a satisfying progression from Sophie's theme to the traveling theme, the dream theme, the monarchy theme, the nightmare theme, and a fuller rendition of Sophie's theme and its secondary passages, all in that order. On the whole, The BFG is an exemplary exhibition of fluttering orchestration and rhythmic prancing, almost all of it rooted solely in Williams' best trademark styles. There are short sequences when he lifts prior works seemingly wholesale, including The Fury at 0:56 into "The Witching Hour" and A.I. at 0:52 into "Dream Country" (the latter followed at 1:12 by a passage seemingly perfect for an Elmer Bernstein ondes martenot performance), but these are rare. It's easy to understand why The BFG will leave some listeners cold, because it lacks the sections of elongated tonal resonance and powerful bass region presence that grace the maestro's best works. But it functions with masterful ambient precision for the occasion and is, at the very least, another reminder of Williams' immense technical superiority.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Bias Check:

For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.78 (in 74 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.66 (in 348,084 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.

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