Album Review: 'Lights, Camera...Music! Six Decades of John Williams'

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(C) 2017 BSO Classics


On June 23, 2017, BSO Classics, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's in-house recording label, released the CD edition of Lights, Camera...Music! Six Decades of John Williams. This 16-track album contains a selection of themes and cues from a mix of minor films (Heidi) or lesser-known projects (Goodbye, Mr. Chips) that John Williams scored in the late 1960s, as well as music from more prominent movies (The Towering Inferno, Dracula, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial) from the apogee of the composer's long, storied career. 

As many fans of Maestro Williams know, the orchestra featured in Lights, Camera...Music! is the world famous Boston Pops Orchestra, an ensemble comprised by members of the BSO that performs in the Boston area and on tours during the spring and summer months. Williams has a long history with the Pops; he was the orchestra's music director and principal conductor from 1980 till 1994; now that Keith Lockhart leads the Pops, Maestro Williams holds the title of  Laureate Conductor and enjoys a congenial relationship with his successor.

For Lights, Camera...Music!, producer Shawn Murphy (who has worked on many John Williams recordings, including the soundtrack albums for the Star Wars Prequels) and his team selected music from some of Williams' "forgotten" films. Included in the eclectic collection are:

  • The Main Title & Overture from the TV movie adaptation of Heidi, the 1968 adaptation of the classic children's story by Swiss writer Johanna Spyri. I've never seen this film, but I do know it gained notoriety when NBC, the TV network which produced Heidi, premiered it at 7 PM on Sunday, November 17, even though the Oakland Raiders-New York Jets game had not ended yet. NBC had decided to delay the start of Heidi's broadcast till the game ended, but the network's phone network at New York's Rockefeller headquarters crashed as a result of so many people calling in to ask if the game would still air or would the movie preempt it. Consequently, management could not contact the control facility in time, and Heidi aired at its originally scheduled time. This caused angry NFL fans to miss the end of the game, which Oakland won, 43-32. Football fans still call this match the "Heidi Game."
  • The Main Title to The Towering Inferno, one of several "disaster epics" produced by Irwin Allen in the 1970s and the first joint venture between two major studios (in this instance, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros.)
  • A lesser-known march from 1976's World War II battle recreation film Midway, "The Men of the Yorktown March"
  • "Night Journeys,"  a cue from John Badham's stylish but mostly forgotten Dracula, a romantic-but-still-scary take on Bram Stoker's 1897 vampire novel
  • The Reunion and Finale from Barry Levinson's 1996 legal crime drama Sleepers
  • The Revolutionary War-set The Patriot's Main Theme
  • Viktor's Theme from Steven Spielberg's 2004 comedy-drama The Terminal
  • The ethereal and romantic Theme from Sabrina, the 1995 remake of Billy Wilder's 1954 classic love story
  • The "Devil's Dance" from George Miller's 1987 comedy fantasy The Witches of Eastwick
  • "Stargazers," a seldom-recorded cue from 1982's E.T.
  •  A suite of themes from 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the seventh score composed by Williams for the long-running franchise. It includes "March of the Resistance," "Rey's Theme," "Scherzo for X-Wings," "Jedi Steps," and "Finale." 
My Take

The Boston Pops Orchestra has a long tradition of recording albums dedicated to the music of John Williams. In fact, in the early years of Maestro Williams' tenure with the ensemble, some of the players resented having to perform music by their famous conductor; their allegedly rude behavior at rehearsals almost led to Williams' resignation at the end of the second season. Luckily, this was averted when both sides came to an understanding, and Philips/Sony Classical went on to release various Williams-only albums, most notably By Request: The Best of John Williams and the Boston Pops (1987) and the first entry in an eventual three-CD series The Spielberg-Williams Collaboration (1990).   

Lights, Camera...Music! keeps some conventions of previous Willliams/Boston Pops albums, such as presenting music that is timely in relation to works by the composer. In this instance, 2017 marks the 40th anniversary of the premiere of George Lucas's original Star Wars film, so naturally music from The Force Awakens is featured in no less than five tracks.

Producer Shawn Murphy and conductor Keith Lockhart also made a wise choice in selecting cues that are less familiar to casual listeners of film scores. In my many years of collecting albums of Williams' works for the movies, I've never come across cues written for Heidi (a TV movie I have not seen) or The Towering Inferno (which I saw perhaps once when it aired on ABC-TV in the late 1970s). So for me, Lights, Camera...Music! is like visiting the attic in my old house in Miami and finding a long-lost trinket I had forgotten, or not been aware of its existence. 

Lights, Camera...Music! is available directly from the BSO Shop (https://www.bso.org/Merchandise/Detail/89910) in either CD or digital download, or at Amazon as a CD (with a free "AutoRip" download once the purchase is complete). The CD is a one-disc edition that comes in a digipack that includes a booklet of liner notes, information about the Boston Pops, and Maestros Williams and Lockhart.

The album has a running time of one hour and 16, and the different themes evoke a wide range of moods that range from the majestic feel of the Swiss Alps (Heidi) to the brooding horror of Victorian era vampires (Dracula) to the space-faring battles of a galaxy far, far away (Star Wars: The Force Awakens). No matter what your favorite movie music mood is, Lights, Camera...Music! Six Decades of John Williams is a worthy tribute to one of America's best-known and beloved composers. 




Recorded live at Symphony Hall on April 7-8, 2017, except* recorded May 26-28, 2016.

All music composed and orchestrated by John Williams, except track 2: music by Leslie Bricusse, adapted and arranged by John Williams.

  1. Main Title & Overture from Heidi
  2. Overture to Goodbye, Mr. Chips
  3. Main Title from The Towering Inferno
  4. The Men of the Yorktown March from Midway *
  5. Night Journeys from Dracula *
  6. Stargazers from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
  7. Devil's Dance from The Witches of Eastwick
  8. Theme from Sabrina
  9. Reunion and Finale from Sleepers
  10. Theme from The Patriot
  11. Viktor's Tale from The Terminal
  12. Suite from Star Wars: The Force Awakens: March of the Resistance *
  13. Suite from Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Rey's Theme *
  14. Suite from Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Scherzo for X-Wings *
  15. Suite from Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Jedi Steps *
  16. Suite from Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Finale *

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