By Request: The Best Of John Williams And The Boston Pops Orchestra

Morning walking workout is usually accompanied by music. Grabbed a tape of John Williams & the Boston Popps belting out the Olympic Fanfare and Theme (from recording named "By Request"). Such fun I instantly researched the availability of a CD version. Found it. Ordered it. Received it. Played it. Filed it. Discovered I already owned it. Want it back?

My daughter is playing the Cowboys Overture in an upcoming concert and needed to listen to a recording. This CD contains many of John Williams works -- and is played (excellently) by the Boston Pops. This recording has become a treasured part of my daughters extensive music library and it contains often hard to find pieces. You can't beat shopping for music with Amazon. If they don't have it -- no one will. We are happy Amazon customers and remain so! Thanks to all the fine folks that work at Amazon!

I looked at all of the John Williams CD's, and this one seems to have the widest variety of Spielberg/Lucas/Williams classics: Raiders, Star Wars, ET, Close Encounters, Jaws. And who knew he did the NBC News theme??!!! Only knock is that it could stand to be updated with some of the newer classics: Phantom Menace, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park. A great buy though.

A pops orchestra is by definition a different animal from a standard classical orchestra, and what you get here are more sparkling (like soda pop, get it?) performances of Williams' familiar movie music. Basically you get emotive playing with that extra kick. The Boston Pops violin section in particular is in very good form here. If you like that kind of highly expressive playing, this is the CD for you. The NBC News "Mission Theme" in particular stands out as probably the best available on disc, and it is a joy to listen to (if you just pretend it isn't a TV newscast theme). Of historic importance are the world premiere performances of "Yoda's Theme" and "The Imperial March" (introduced to the world even before the second Star Wars movie "The Empire Strikes Back" came out in 1980!) This is a good sampling of Williams' golden age of film music conducted by the maestro's own hand.

The interesting issue about this recording is that Williams himself directs. It is always a plus to listen to music played by its author. Average performance by the orchestra.