This past week John Williams had his 80th birthday. One of the first thing he will do during his 80th year will be attending the Oscars later this month where the Maestro is nominated for 2 best score awards. Even at this age Williams is at the top of his game.

In honor of the most prolific film composer alive today I wanted to use my weekly film score soap box to celebrate the man who has provided the soundtrack to the imaginations of several generations.

Everyone knows about his contributions to Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter, but how many people are aware that he wrote not one, but two classic themes for Lost in Space?

It was John Williams music that made me fall in love with film music. I can pinpoint it all the way back to a single moment in Jurassic Park when the helicopter approached Isla Nublar, the cue still gives me chills to this day, and nearly two decades later I still look to Mr. Williams as the inspiration for a life long passion.

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W.E. is the last of our Golden Globe nominated scores, perfect timing as the show airs this Sunday, and by far the most unexpected. In fact before this nomination I didn’t even know this movie existed. The film is actually directed by Madonna, which is interesting but not all together important for a review of it’s score.

The composer is Abel Korzeniowski and I can see why his excellent work was recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press. The score is very well put together with an emphasis on large, sweeping strings in a few very choice places. Listening to the music gives me the sense that it probably dominates much of the movie. While I appreciate that sort of heavy handed musical touch, I can also see where it might have played a role in the films less than stellar critical reception.

I am happy to see it nominated though, as there has been a recent trend of nominating more subtle and subdued scores in the last few years. This is far from it, and it plays very nicely to my personal film musical tastes. Strong string work always has a tendency to grip me, and this score delivers that in spades.

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home remains one of the most popular Star Trek films, and is often considered the biggest hit of the original crew’s cinematic run. The movie is certainly the oddest of the bunch and adding to the goofier tone of the film is Leonard Rosenman’s score.

The score is usually sited as one of the weaker elements of the film, but that is an opinion born mostly from one or two very unfortunate cues that made it into the movie. The score as a whole is very good and the movie features one of the best main theme’s written for any of the films.

The wonderful folks at Intrada thankfully see it that way too because they have just announced the release of the complete score for Star Trek IV.

“Intrada ends 2011 with one last major release – the complete Leonard Rosenman score to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The second film in the series under the helm of director Leonard Nimoy, Nimoy choose a lighter approach to this outing and injected liberal amounts of well-placed humor.  For this fourth entry, Nimoy introduced another element he had wanted to bring on board earlier in the series: the music of Leonard Rosenman. Rosenman’s Star Trek IV music bears the hallmarks of the composer’s distinctive style: vaulting brass figures, complex textural passages, thumping suspense motives. The main theme—and also Kirk’s theme—is upbeat, heraldic and heroic, its optimistic flavor cutting a different path than the other scores in the series.”

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The Hunger Games is shaping up to be one of next year’s most interesting films. Based on it’s source material and fan base it would have been easy for the filmmakers to pump out a cheap looking Twilight cash in, but a funny thing happened along the way. The movie actually looks visually intriguing and competently constructed.

One of the more exciting aspects about the behind the scenes of this movie was the inclusion of Danny Elfman as it’s composer. Elfman is always capable of crafting a memorable theme and in recent years he has shown the ability to stretch his musical muscles. Alas, the new Tim Burton movie, Dark Shadows, and Men in Black III are keeping Elfman too busy next year and he has to bow out as the composer. Enter James Newton Howard.

Newton Howard is one of the most consistent film composers working today, he is capable of making a phenominal score for any movie, no matter it’s quality. Heck, the man’s score for Lady in the Water is one of the best things no one has heard in the last decade. He is much like Jerry Goldsmith in that regard.

The movie might have lost one high profile composer, but it gained another master. One who is more likely to give us something great, no matter the final quality of the film itself.

The music in a Super Hero film is one of the most important aspects to making an iconic movie. The characters are larger than life, and that needs to be translated into the music. Going back to Superman, almost all of the best Super Hero movies have had the support of an iconic score.

So when Marvel is putting together the biggest Super Hero movie of all time it is only a natural that they are going with one of the greatest action/adventure composers of all time, Alan Silvestri. According to his own website, Silvestri will be writing the score for The Avengers, the culmination of five Marvel Studios productions that have introduced all of the principle heroes and villains.

Silvestri composed the wonderful Captain America score, and with that film being the closet thing to a prequel to The Avengers it is great to get a chance to hear a good progression of themes from one movie to another. Although I will have to admit to a little bit of disappointment that David Newman isn’t getting a crack at this movie. Newman composed the score for director Joss Whedon’s first feature film, Serenity, and has a fantastic knack for action scores himself.

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Often times a filmmaker and a composer find a shared voice, a common approach that allows both to make the project they share truly remarkable. One of the highest profile partnerships is that of Steven Spielberg and John Williams, arguably the two greatest artist in their chosen fields. This winter brings us not one, but two brand new collaborations between these two heavyweights, and today we are going to dig into the first of the two, War Horse.

I was extremely excited when I began listening to this music, every time Williams composes music for a Spielberg film there is a good chance he is crafting something remarkable. The first 25 seconds of the War Horse score immediately let me know this music would be no exception. The score is classic Williams, with a somberness that is just subtle enough to be noticed, but not get in the way of the idealistic sheen that Williams uses so well.

The main theme of War Horse is beautiful, Williams is the greatest theme writer in the history of ever and some how he manages to still do it to this day. The theme is simple, but evocative of early 20th century hopes and dreams as well as the nobility of the soliders fighting in the first two world wars. Which makes sense due to the fact that the film is about the incredible journey of a boy, too young to enlist going to the war torn trenches in France to save his friend, the titular horse. 

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OK, I am calling it right now. Henry Jackman is a composer to watch. So far this year he has scored three films, all with a unique, interesting and fun sound. First it was the stellar X-Men: First Class, my review of which can be found here, followed by Winnie the Pooh which was really good in very different ways. Now Jackman brings his up and coming stylings to another animated feature, although this time one that has it’s roots in a decidedly different musical lineage.

Puss in Boots is the first spin off film in the Shrek franchise, and it follows the titular Puss (tee hee), played by Antonio Bandaras, in his own adventures. Puss was a highlight of the second film and one of the few good parts of the third and fourth movies so a stand alone feature might work.

The film is about sword-wielding avenger with a thick Spanish accent played by Antonio Bandaras, and if you immediately thought Zorro then you and Mr. Jackman might have something in common.

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The Transformers trilogy is an interesting beast. The first film was a surprisingly great sci-fi action film, the second was one of the worst pieces of junk I have ever sat through and the third comes somewhere in the middle. Despite the inconsistency in quality from film to film the one thing that remained steady in it’s excellence was Steve Jablonsky’s scores.

Jablonsky comes from the Hans Zimmer cadre of film composers who have dominated the movie score scene over the last decade. Like Klaus Badelt and Harry Gregson-Williams before him, Jablonsky made a significant impact in his career collaborating with a prolific filmmaker, Michael Bay. He had several good scores prior to Transformers, particularly The Island, but it wasn’t until he scored the giant talking robot opus that you knew you were listening to a real talent who has limitless potential.

Now at the end of the Transformers saga Silva Screen Records has put together a collection of the music from the entire trilogy, celebrating some of the best action sci-fi music ever written. The music is performed by London Music Works and does a really incredible job of capturing the essence of what the music is. This is especially great considering that at times the music actually sounds quite different.

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Drive is an interesting film. I have not seen it yet, but I can tell that by its trailers, promotional one-sheets and now its score. The music strikes a very interesting tone that fits in with the minimalistic, and down right retro style we have seen from the movie thus far.

The film features a score by Cliff Martinez, an early Steven Soderbergh collaborator who has since developed an interesting filmography. The Martinez portion of this score is pretty solid across the board. I enjoy the retro, almost electronic sound the score boasts.

It is almost like a minimalist version of the Tron: Legacy score, My only reservation of his music is that it is pretty one note. I don’t know that I could pick one track from another if I wasn’t looking at a track list.

The other major portion of this soundtrack is a selection of tracks by several different artists. This portion of the sound track was very enjoyable during the first couple tracks, but became mildly repetitive as it moved along. Really shining a light on the real problem on this who soundtrack, repetitiveness. I love the general sonic landscape this score is selling, but as an album I don’t know if it stands well on it’s own.

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Recently film music legend John Barry past away. It was a great loss for the film score community, Barry wrote some of the most well known themes and scores of all time during his career. Most people know Barry most for his work on a large number of James Bond movies, but me personally, my favorite score is from the undereducated Disney film The Black Hole.

The guys over at Intrada Records have recently struck a deal with Disney to release some of their more classic scores and thankfully the need for a fully restored The Black Hole was high on their priority list. Beyond the quality of the score itself, the music for this movie has historical significance:

John Barry’s score was the first digitally recorded soundtrack in motion picture history and was recorded using the 3M Digital Recorder. The format was used sparingly for several years until technology moved on, and due to its limited use, finding working machines had become quite a challenge some 30 years later.

Randy Thornton’s producer’s notes chronicle the entire odyssey through the investigations and trials until successful transfer of the 32-track digital elements, with simply stunning results.  Now The Black Hole is presented in complete form with a striking clarity not heard previously.

This new release is available now from Intrada’s website.

The music from the Lord of the Rings films might very well be the best ever written for a film. Howard Shore often considered the entire project as his opera, structured in a sweeping and broad style that worked hand in hand with the epic story. So it is a natural that 10 years later the music is still exciting fans around the globe.

The music has been revisited again, this time being constructed as a symphony in six movements. The full twelve hours of music from the original films has been pared down into the six movements, each reflecting one of the six books of the original Lord of the Rings novel.

“Maestro Ludwig Wicki personally selected the musicians who comprise The 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and who perform on this recording,” said Shore. “Over the past four years he has perfected this music in Lucerne, Switzerland. His precision and supreme musicianship is evident throughout the recording. I congratulate him on his success and thank him for his masterful approach in bringing this score to life.”

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Film composers for the Pixar films have been a pretty exclusive club up to this point. It began with Randy Newman, then stayed in the family when Thomas Newman came over to work with Andrew Stanton,. Finally Michael Giacchino came aboard with Incredibles and that was basically it. Randy Newman and Giacchino both won Oscars for their Pixar works and Thomas Newman has been nominated for three of his own. So when a new composer is signed to join those storied ranks it is exciting news.

The Scotsman is reporting that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire composer Patrick Doyle has been hired to write the music for the next Pixar film Brave. The new film centers on a Scottish princess and boasts many other departures from the normal Pixar mold.

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