alexdg1's Full Review: Schindler's List by Original Soundtrack
One of the most powerful movies made in the last 15 years, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List gave John Williams a chance to eschew his normally operatic style in film scoring and to prove that simplicity and restraint can add more power to a film than a huge symphonic score. Instead of choosing heavy brooding Nazi-style marches or heroic Indiana Jones-like themes for the various characters, Williams chose instead to go for a subdued style, using solo piano, children's choirs, and poignant violin solos by the great Itzhak Perlman to underscore the horrors of the Holocaust and the eventual humanization of Oskar Schindler.
Williams' "Theme from Schindler's List" is a poignant composition that has its roots in the musical style favored by Eastern European Jews. That Williams can write scores using forms and instrumentation used by other cultures is not surprising. Williams, after all, won his first Academy Award for adapting the music from Broadway's "Fiddler on the Roof" for the movie version, and his score for Ron Howard's "Far and Away" employs Irish melodic forms quite effectively. The "Theme" is hauntingly beautiful, and it matters not whether it's performed by the entire Boston Symphony, a solo pianist, or Perlman on violin.
Another lovely yet melancholic piece is "Remembrances," which appears twice on this CD.
"Immolation (With Our Lives, We Give Life)" is a moving, keening choral piece, while "Oyf'n Pripetshok and Nacht Aktion" mingles a traditional Jewish song and original Williams material to underscore the Germans' "cleansing" of the Krakow Ghetto.
Ending the album's 13 tracks are the "Yeroushalaim Chel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold)," performed beautifully by the Ramat Gan Chamber Choir, "Remembrances," reprised by Itzhak Perlman, and the piano-and-orchestra reprise version of "Theme from Schindler's List."
John Williams earned his fourth Best Original Score Oscar for this gentle and evocative work, and I recommend this album for fans of either the composer or film music in general...or even serious classical music listeners.
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