Music Album Review: 'Out of This World: John Williams & The Boston Pops'

Cover Design and Illustration: Jeff Walker. (C) 1983 Phonogram International B.V.

The stars have always figured prominently in the arts of mankind, but at no time in history has this subject matter been used in a way that parallels the creation of recent films about adventures in space. These movies, which were made primarily as popular entertainment, have become the fairy tales and myths of modern times, calling forth responses from deep within us. -William Livingstone, in the liner notes for Out of This World. 



In the summer of 1983, when director Richard Marquand's Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and the Steven Spielberg-John Landis production of Twilight Zone: The Movie were still in theaters, Dutch record label Philips released Out of This World: John Williams and the Boston Pops in a vinyl LP record and on audiocassette. It was a sequel to an earlier Boston Pops/John Williams album with a similar theme, Pops in Space and featured music from eight sci-fi themed feature films and TV shows, including Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek: The Television Show, Robert Wise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, and Ridley Scott's Alien. 

The main draw of Out of This World for contemporary listeners was, naturally, the four-track concert hall suite from Return of the Jedi, which consists of new arrangements of four themes or cues from the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy. Three of these (Parade of the Ewoks, Luke & Leia, and The Forest Battle) were released in the original soundtrack album in May of 1983; the fourth, Jabba the Hutt, was heard for the first time as a concert piece in Out of This World, although it would resurface later in Varese Sarabande's The Star Wars Trilogy and similar Star Wars "cover" albums that followed in Out of This World's wake. 

Introduction from Also Sprach Zarathustra (R. Strauss), aka Theme from 2001

Out of This World consists of 11 tracks. The first seven are from four feature films (2001, E.T., Alien, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and three television series (Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Twilight Zone). 

Adventures on Earth from 'E.T. (John Williams)

Track Listing: 

1. Also Sprach Zarathustra (01:51) from "2001; A Space Odyssey" (Richard Strauss)

2. Adventures on Earth (09:16) from "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" (John Williams)

3. Closing Title (02:51) from "Alien" (Jerry Goldsmith)

4. Main Theme (03:43) from "Star Trek: The Television Show" (Alexander Courage)

5. Main Title (03:29) from "Battlestar Galactica" (Stu Philips)

6. Main Title (04:08) from "Star Trek / the Motion Picture" (Jerry Goldsmith)

7. Theme & Variations (03:40) from "Twilight Zone" (Marius Constant)

8. Parade of the Ewoks (03:33) Star Wars- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (John Williams)

9. Luke & Leia (04:27)  Star Wars- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (John Williams)

10. Jabba the Hutt (03:33) Star Wars- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (John Williams)

11. The Forest Battle (04:03) Star Wars- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (John Williams)

  
And, as mentioned earlier, the last four tracks on Out of This World comprise Williams' "Suite from Return of the Jedi."

Main Title from Battlestar Galactica (Stu Phillips)

My Take

I originally got this album as a high school graduation in the summer of 1983. I didn't have a working turntable to play the vinyl LP record on; my mother had given the family's 1970s-era stereo system to my older half-sister when she moved out on her own in 1980, and by 1983 stereo systems that played LPs were rare and expensive because a new format, the compact disc, was coming online. I did have an AM/FM portable radio with a cassette player, though, so when I received my copy of Out of This World it was on cassette. I still have that tape in one of the many boxes where my "stuff" is stored, but I no longer have a "tape deck" to play it on.

I do, however, own the compact disc (CD) which Philips Classics released in October of 1990 in the North American market. I acquired Out of This World  when I was first putting together my CD collection in the early Nineties; its been in my possession for almost 30 years and in remarkably good condition.

Luke & Leia from Return of the Jedi (John Williams)
 For me, the big draw in Out of This World was Maestro Williams' "first released recording" of the suite from Return of the Jedi. Sure, I had the RSO Records soundtrack from the movie on audiocassette, but I had heard Chester Schmitz's tuba solo in Jabba the Hutt (track 10) on an episode of the late and much missed Evening at Pops TV concert series shortly before my high school's commencement ceremony and was amused by how Williams could portray Jedi's "vile gangster" through music alone. 

But as much as I loved the five tracks of John Williams' themes from E.T. and Return of the Jedi, I also was taken with the Boston Pops performances of other, equally significant themes by other composers. 

One, the Introduction to "Also Sprach Zarazusthra" by Richard Strauss. was not originally written for the movies, but its inclusion into the soundtrack of 2001; A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick transforms this composition from purely classical music into a sci-fi classic theme. The credits in the album liner notes don't say who arranged it, but logic suggests that it was scored by either Maestro Williams or one of the Boston Pops arrangers. 

Main Theme from Star Trek: The Television Show (Alexander Courage)

Speaking of logic, I'm sure that Mr. Spock would get a kick out of Alexander Courage's arrangement of his Main Theme  from Star Trek: The Original Series, which is billed here as Star Trek: The Television Show. This is a jazzy, more fully-developed concert arrangement of the famous theme for Gene Roddenberry's 1966-1969 show that took audiences to "Space: the Final Frontier" aboard the Starship Enterprise. 

Logic also suggests an alternative theory as to why track four was billed as Star Trek: The Television Show: to distinguish Courage's very 1960s-like composition from Jerry Goldsmith's late 1970s more "space opera" theme from 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 

Main Title from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Jerry Goldsmith)

I'm not a particularly avid fan of Robert Wise's "further adventures" film that starred the cast from Star Trek: The Original Series, but I do love the music composed and arranged by Jerry Goldsmith. The majestic, sweeping theme for Capt. Kirk and the USS Enterprise for an otherwise "so-so" movie that had pretentions of wanting to be Gene Roddenberry's version of 2001: A Space Odyssey is perhaps one of Star Trek: The Motion Picture's strongest elements. so I was happy when Roddenberry chose to meld it with the opening fanfare of Courage's Star Trek theme to create the main title music for Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Goldsmith's "concert hall" arrangement in Out of This World is presented in a more stately, slow-paced tempo than its movie or television counterparts. It's the same thematic material, but the performance is perfectly suited for a more leisurely listening experience.

As always, "America's Orchestra" tackles all of the featured compositions with the same sensitivity and care as if they were pieces by Mozart or Beethoven. The pieces are relatively short; "Adventures on Earth," the longest single piece, lasts slightly over nine minutes, while the Closing Title from Alien runs shy of the three-minute mark. That said, all 11 of the musical selections in Out of This World are evocative of those hours spent in front of the television or in the darkness of the movie theaters where we went on those astral voyages of the imagination.