Sean Wilson reviews the concert performance of John Williams’ classic dinosaur blockbuster score…
Assessing a film score is a tricky thing – does one applaud an orchestral soundtrack for drawing attention to itself, or for remaining steadfastly unobtrusive and part of the fabric of the movie in question? It’s especially tricky when assessing the work of John Williams, inarguably the most celebrated and famous of all contemporary film composers and whose richly melodic masterpieces for Steven Spielberg readily play on the emotions. Although a composer capable of great subtlety, as the likes of Jane Eyre and Schindler’s List attest, it’s Williams’ more robust, rambunctious works for which he is destined to be remembered, and they’re also the ones that tend to draw criticism for stepping beyond the boundary of the visuals to actively inform us what to feel at a given moment.
The contradictory nature of film music, a format that’s ultimately subservient to the moving image yet equally capable of acting as a listening experience away from it, was highlighted in the stirring and spectacular Royal Albert Hall performance of Williams’ Jurassic Park score. Performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the enthusiastic baton of Ludwig Wicki, the entirety of the score played out beneath a projection of the movie itself, the live performance of the music substituting for the score as heard in context. It was a tremendous evening that also presented an intriguing dilemma, compelling the audience to divide their attention between the images and the musical ensemble. Surely this is a violation of the oft-held belief that music in movies should be absolutely bound up with the visuals and not noticed at all?
Putting aside such philosophical concerns, the Royal Philharmonic’s rich interpretation of a Williams classic did justice to its grandiose sweep, here represented by their impeccable take on the justly famous, oft-imitated main themes for both the dinosaurs (hymnal, rapturous, ecstatic) and the setting of Isla Nublar (brassy, punchy, honouring the master of such things, Erich Wolfgang Korngold). It’s no mean feat: requiring absolute command of tempo and cue timings, lest the entire performance be blown off course and disrupted from its visual anchor, the concert was quite a staggeringly ambitious achievement that put both the orchestra and Wicki through their paces. (That said, the absence of choir in the main dinosaur theme perhaps denied it the full-blooded dimension of the original movie performance.)
It was also an event that stressed how brilliantly scored Jurassic Park is. Both Williams and Spielberg are often criticised for over-scoring, yet key set-pieces in the movie, the jaw-dropping T-Rex breakout sequence being one, are devoid of music, throwing emphasis onto the rich sound design whilst further heightening the impact of the score when it does eventually appear. The Royal Philharmonic also did a tremendous job of extracting the score’s overlooked plethora of nuances; truly this is a soundtrack with so much more to offer than two majestic main themes.
Just as Jurassic Park was Spielberg’s final blockbuster prior to being embraced as a grown-up filmmaker with Schindler’s List, so too does Williams’ music act as a bridge between the playful exuberance of Indiana Jones and Hook, and the darker impulses to come in later 1990s scores like Nixon and Saving Private Ryan. The latter is represented by Williams’ genuinely chilling four-note danger of doom, regularly heard on the full force of the trombone section to signal the onset of bloodshed and terror; in the manner of Jaws it weaves its way through the score from the atonal woodwind main titles to the nerve-shattering showdown with the dreaded Velociraptors. One could sense the relish of the players in getting to grips with the score’s savage side, eventually building to a thunderous timpani-laden finale as the T-Rex lets out its final on-screen bellow.
But there’s tenderness too. The innocent glockenspiel interpretation of the main dinosaur theme to represent Alan Grant’s burgeoning relationship with Lex and Tim was enough to bring tears to the eyes, as were the deeply moving, see-sawing strings embodying the sick Triceratops. Elsewhere the score’s original synthetic elements were neatly sidestepped with woodblock and piano keeping tension high during the treacherous Dennis Nedry’s attempted escape from the island.
The Philharmonic invested as much passion in these secondary ideas as they did in the grandiose main themes, further helping to reinforce Jurassic Park‘s status as one of Williams’ richest, most important and most intelligently constructed works. And when an orchestra is capable of creating such a delicious sense of anticipation with little more than a rumbling piano signalling the arrival of the T-Rex, it’s clear they’ve done more than extract the spirit of the score; they’ve crafted a living, breathing concert experience that imbues this Williams masterpiece with exciting new life.
Sean Wilson is a film reviewer, soundtrack enthusiast and avid tea drinker. If all three can be combined at the same time, all is right with the world.
Originally published November 7, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
