While reliance on small ensembles and synthetics is done all the time in Hollywood for budgetary reasons, Horner claims to have approached Field of Dreams with this intention of reaching the nostalgic Americana summary via the orchestra only at the end. Interestingly, his claims of wanting to write a "magical Americana" score for Field of Dreams are contradicted by his finished result, a score that has a fairly low amount of magic and very little Aaron Copland Americana spirit at all. Both The Natural by Randy Newman and For the Love of the Game by Basil Poledouris better capture baseball's historical place in America's culture through orchestral and contemporary tones. The fact that Field of Dreams was nominated for an Academy Award that year instead of the far more authentic and deserving Glory is testimony to that awarding body's deeply rooted and forever persisting faults. Little consistency is to be heard from Horner from start to finish in Field of Dreams, the composer introducing the score with a solo horn leading to a broad, bass whole note complete with the tingling percussive effects that mirror The Natural. From there, Horner's solo piano performances speak to the atmosphere of the simple life on the farm. These two sequences represent the composer's main thematic identities in the work. The former is what he terms the "calling theme," its meandering, descending tones rumbling with those low piano notes akin to Newman whenever a sense of gravity is needed. That instrumental technique promises more than it delivers, though it will likely suffice to evoke feelings of awe and realization from the audience. The latter is deemed the "Irish theme" for the main character and his relationship with his father. The calling theme, after that performance on solo horn at 0:15 into "The Cornfield," becomes a four-note "voice motif" in several synthetic cues and persists in that form late in "Deciding to Build the Field," tentatively in "Shoeless Joe," and with particular eeriness in "Terence's Vision." The rumbles underneath the theme return early in "The Decision" and define some of the swells of the orchestra in "The Place Where Dreams Come True" and "End Credits."

The Irish theme in Field of Dreams, meanwhile, is the solo piano identity introduced at 1:29 into "The Cornfield" an recurs early in "Deciding to Build the Field," again on solo piano in "Night Mists," and also in fuller form in "The Place Where Dreams Come True," where it notably moves to acoustic guitar at 5:08 before transferring to the ensemble in this cue and "End Credits." These piano performances by Horner for this theme are as sterile as any in his career. A lesser theme is afforded the Graham character (Burt Lancaster), its descending piano figures forceful on piano in "'Moonlight' Graham" and opening "The Timeless Street," "I Play Baseball," and "Rookies" before resolving in "Doc's Memories." Sadly, none of these themes is memorable or particularly effective, each a shadow of better ideas in other Horner scores. By underplaying them, the composer fails to establish meaningful connections between the music and concepts of the story. Perhaps these ills related to the fact that Horner didn't actually write much of his score out ahead of time, keeping the themes in his head and recording his minimal ensemble in jam sessions. With the resulting thematic passages too muted and underdeveloped to function, the Field of Dreams score relies upon its unique cues of volume to sustain interest. His light rock "building theme" occupies two cues, "Deciding to Build the Field" ironically coming the closest to addressing the heart of the film's ambition. The pan pipes are a bastardized relative to baseball park organs in Horner's mind, so thus he had an excuse to apply them here. They do provide the score's most upbeat and arguably alluring moment; the contemporary pan pipe-led performance of the building theme in "The Library" is the highlight of the score despite owing a substantial debt to Hans Zimmer's Rain Man. Outside of these moments, several brooding cues of heavy electronic base and meandering key shifts occupy the middle portions of the score, existing as a mundane cross between lengthy synthetic motifs of The Name of the Rose and the slightly atonal aspects of Vibes. For "Old Ball Players," "Dinner's Ready," and "Night Game," Horner launches into another completely unrelated musical genre: authentic big band jazz from Cocoon for the era of the ghosts.

In the atmospheric portions of Field of Dreams, a light and eerie synthetic choir fades in and out over solo piano meanderings, struggling to engage you before the orchestra finally makes itself known in "Doc's Memories" and the subsequent closing cues. The final fifteen minutes of the score are perhaps its most overrated, attempting to emulate the same sense of weighty importance as Cocoon but failing to achieve the truly genuine feeling of broad, string-based Americana that would manifest itself in later projects such as Deep Impact and Legends of the Fall. Its stature remains underplayed even at these moments. The acoustic guitar conveying the Irish theme in "The Place Where Dreams Come True" could have better tied the entire project together had Horner expanded its role in the score. In the end, despite all the intellectual postulation about this score's "less is more" greatness, Field of Dreams is an ineffectively cold work that just doesn't make much sense when considering the subject matter and depth of heart involved in the characters. For a film about ghosts, family, and baseball in Iowa, the electronic approach is a wasted opportunity, and the contrast between the first three quarters of the score and the last fifteen minutes is not great enough for Horner's desired dramatic effect. For years, the original commercial CD album for Field of Dreams was a relative rarity after initially slipping out of print, and Horner collectors and concept enthusiasts clung desperately to their copies despite the score's remarkably curious appeal. In 2022, La-La Land Records issued a limited 2-CD set that adds an additional eight minutes of all-new material and presents the film version of several cues in a more faithful presentation of the score on the first disc. The second disc offers a straight remastering of the prior album. The sound quality on the product is improved but not to extraordinary levels. Three additional cues are appended to the first disc, the only interesting track among them a different take on "Deciding to Build the Field" that switches around the rock elements in the building theme. This expanded album is a loving treatment of the score, but don't expect any better connection with the longer presentation. Ultimately, Field of Dreams is a basically competent score that risks alienating you with its cool restraint, and this tact by Horner makes the work a highly overrated prospect as well.  **   @Amazon.com: CD or Download