Music Album Review: 'Saving Private Ryan: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'

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(C) 1998 Dreamworks Records. Movie poster art (C) 1998 Dreamworks SKG

John Williams' score for Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's searing World War II drama about eight U.S. soldiers ordered to rescue a paratrooper whose three brothers lost their lives in combat, follows the simple-is-better-than-operatic format that made his music for 1993's Schindler's List powerful and effective.


Considering that most of Williams' film scores tend to be very bombastic and energetic (his Star Wars and Indiana Jones music tends to follow the Wagner/Korngold tradition of big orchestras and action-oriented cues), it's refreshing to hear this very prolific (and much-imitated) composer use orchestral restraint where he might have been tempted to utilize strident and Sousa-like marches, as is common in most war movies set during World War II.

But starting with the reverent-yet-mournful Hymn to the Fallen (a piece that is not heard till the End Credits, but is nevertheless an apt start to this album), Williams utilizes musical motifs to highlight the different aspects of the Normandy invasion as experienced by Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) and the seven GIs who have been assigned to retrieve Pvt. James Ryan (Matt Damon) from the small airhead held by the 101 Airborne Division on the Cotentin Peninsula in the days following the D-Day landings. This beautiful yet haunting piece sets the proper tone for this album and is reprised at the end. (Careful listeners will note that this arrangement is not used in the film, however. Williams and Spielberg use a longer version of this music that also incorporates the Omaha Beach Theme.)

Besides the Hymn to the Fallen (a piece which has become a staple of Memorial Day concerts since 1999) there is the equally solemn Revisiting Normandy, which serves as the film's "Main Title" and is heard as underscore to the scene in the Omaha Beach cemetery where the old WWII vet is making his way to the beautifully maintained "last resting place" of several thousand Americans who gave their lives in France in 1944. The trumpet solos by Tim Morrison and Thomas Rolfs, in addition to horn soloist Gus Sebring's performance, convey the mixture of gratitude and sadness most of us – including director Spielberg and lead actor Hanks – feel about the actions taken by the men who fought and suffered so much pain and death to liberate Europe from German occupation.



The motif that dominates the film's score is heard for the first time in the now famous "letters" sequence, where Williams introduces the theme labeled Omaha Beach, starting from when Capt. Miller tells Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore) that he sees "quite a view" as he looks down on the invasion fleet and the debris of the initial landings earlier that morning of June 6.

Omaha Beach starts as a powerful yet mournful theme, and then segues to a more restrained tone as the scene shifts first to the War Department in Washington, D.C. as we see the many secretaries and typists working on countless notification letters about fallen GIs. It swells to a tragic crescendo when the Army sedan pulls up to the Ryan farmhouse in rural Iowa and Mrs. Ryan gets all three telegrams informing that three of her sons have given their lives in "the altar of freedom."

Even in action cues such as track 9 (The Last Battle) Williams avoids the expected rah-rah type of overture that he is associated with for other Spielberg films. Instead, there is a sense of suspense and impending loss to the music, reminding us that Saving Private Ryan is not meant to merely entertain us for thrills and chills, but to honor the men and women of the Greatest Generations, both the survivors who came home, and those who did not.

Williams conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus with his usual golden touch. This is one of his most mature works and is a fitting musical tribute to the citizen soldiers who saved the world in its darkest days.



Track Listing:
1.
"Hymn to the Fallen"
6:10
2.
"Revisiting Normandy"
4:06
3.
"Omaha Beach"
9:15
4.
"Finding Private Ryan"
4:37
5.
"Approaching the Enemy"
4:31
6.
"Defense Preparations"
5:54
7.
"Wade's Death"
4:30
8.
"High School Teacher"
11:03
9.
"The Last Battle"
7:57
10.
"Hymn to the Fallen (Reprise)"
6:10
Total length:
64:13


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