Search - Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams :: Music from the Films of Steven Spielberg

Mediocre mess, nonetheless worth having for some

Bryant Burnette | Tuscaloosa, AL | 07/06/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you've never purchased one of these Silva Screen best-of score CDs, let me first say this: unless you're a true film-score nut (like me), don't do it. Just don't. They really aren't terribly good. This one, like most, is played by The city of Prague Philharmonic, and it's not a terribly talented orchestra. They play very flatly, they miss notes, their orchestrator makes odd changes to composers' music. The end result of all this is that if you're familiar with the film versions of the pieces of music they're playing, it can be, frankly, a bit difficult to listen to.



That said, there is one decent -- decent, mind you -- reason to buy this CD. That's for the five-minute track of music from Spielberg's "Duel." It isn't great music, by any means, but if you're a Spielberg fanatic, this is the only release there has ever been (to my knowledge, at least) of music from that movie.



To be fair, not all of the tracks here are poorly done. "Hymn to the Fallen" comes off fairly well, and so does the music from "A.I." and "The Terminal" -- and the "Minority Report" theme is actually quite good. But much of the rest just doesn't sound right, so if you're looking for a quick way to assemble a quality overview of Spielberg music, this isn't the way to go.



That brings me to my final complaint, which is that "The Lost World" is omitted entirely! There were several good themes done for that movie; it was no mere rehash of "Jurassic Park."



For the seriously devoted only."