RUSLAN AND LUDMILLA OVERTURE

Mikhail Glinka

Mikhail Glinka was the father of Russian music. Where before itinerant troupes of Italian, French, or German
musicians had dominated, Glinka staked out his territory and became the musical inspiration for generations of
composers and listeners who followed him. He created a uniquely Russian music, planting its roots firmly in the
European tradition but fertilizing it with music from Russian, Middle Eastern, Persian, and other Asian folk traditions.
As a young man, Glinka had conducted the serf orchestra on his uncle's estate near Smolensk, digesting a large chunk
of the mainstream European repertoire while encountering the vital tradition of Russian folk music that thrived in
peasant culture. A visit by an Italian opera company to St. Petersburg in 1828 gave Glinka an opportunity to immerse
himself in Rossini's stage works, and the young composer went on to meet Donizetti and Bellini during a visit to Italy
in the early 1830s. He took what he had learned and created two operas, A Life for the Tsar(1836) and Ruslan and
Ludmilla (1842), which came to stand as monuments to later generations of Russians. Composers like Mussorgsky,
Tchaikovsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov all looked to Glinka as their musical Adam, and the two works are still frequently
performed in Russia.
The Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla is quite a curtain-raiser, with an energy worthy of Rossini and a uniquely Russian
combination of earthy exuberance and heroic feeling. The overture dispenses with the then-usual weighty
introduction, bursting forth with an assertive motto for brass, winds, and timpani connected by scurrying strings.
This boisterous theme yields to a more lyrical passage sung by the cellos before being taken up by the violins. The
development of these themes gives way to a coda that brings the overture to a rousing conclusion.

Although Ruslan and Ludmilla, the second opera composed by Mikhail Glinka, is rarely staged today, its electrifying
and energetic overture is a staple of symphonic repertoire. Most contemporary western audiences know of this
composer, considered the father of the nationalistic Russian school of composition, mainly through this beloved
orchestral showpiece.

Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story”

Leonard Bernstein

The four shows On The Town, Wonderful Town, Candide and West Side Story show a progressive line of stylistic
integration in Leonard Bernstein’s compositional development. An ever-advancing economy of musical means and
tightening of structure proceeds from one show to the next. It was almost predictable from this trend that the West
Side Story hit Broadway like a bombshell, in September, 1957, it would be hailed as a landmark in American theater.
It was indeed recognized as a major leap toward an original kind of theatrical conception. Bernstein had speculated
much earlier that a genuine, indigenous form of American musical theater would eventually arise out of what has
been known as musical comedy Many people think that, in West Side Story, this theory began to be implemented.
Elements from the European and American musical stage traditions were fused into an original art form that is
neither opera nor musical comedy.
From the Old World tradition came complicated vocal ensembles, such as the Quintet in Act I; the use of music to
project the story line forward (as in the duet A Boy Like That); the dramatic device of leitmotifs – for instance, the
one associated with the reality of gang violence, as in the Prologue, or the one associated with the diametrically
opposite vision of togetherness, as in the Finale. In addition, from Europe came the deductive-inductive species of
developing musical materials, by basing much of the West Side Story score on transformations of the tritone interval,
or by immediately developing the opening statement of any given song with melodic or rhythmic variation.
From the New World came idiomatic jazz and Latin timbres and figurations (most of the dance music); a fluid and
constant change from word to music and from scene to scene, such as the second-act ballet that goes from
accompanied spoken word into song, into dance and back again; and most important, the kinetic approach to the
stage – communication through choreographic music – delineated, in concentrated form, by these Symphonic
Dances.
Why are these dances called symphonic? Simply because the dance music, even in its original format, is
symphonically conceived. Relatively dew thematic ideas, combined with each other and metamorphosed into
completely new shapes, are all that are necessary to meet the varying dramatic requirements. This is music on its
own terms, music that does not have to depend upon presupposed knowledge of the unfolding events on the stage.
However, for those who are interested in knowing what transpires on stage during the course of the dances, the
following summary outlines the principal sections of the music (which is arranged so that one section flows into the
next without a break);

Prologue (Allegro Moderato)

The growing rivalry between two teenage gangs, the Jets and the Sharks.
Somewhere (Adagio)
In a dream ballet, the two gangs are united in friendship.
Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero)
In the same dream, the gangs break away from the city walls, suddenly finding themselves in a playful world
of space, air and sun.
Mambo (Meno Presto)
In the real world again, the competitive dance at the gym between the gangs.
Cha-cha (Andantino con grazia)
The star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria see each other for the first time; they dance together.
Meeting Scene (Meno mosso)
Music accompanies their first words spoken to one another.
Cool Fugue (Allegretto)
An elaborate dance sequence in which Riff leads the Jets in harnessing their impulsive hostility, figuratively
“cooling jets.”
Rumble (Molto allegro)
Cinematic gang battle; the gang leaders, Riff and Bernardo, are killed.
Finale (Adagio)
Maria’s I Have a Love develops into a procession, which recalls the vision of Somewhere.

Symphony No. 35, K 385 “Haffner”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

When Mozart relocated from Salzburg to Vienna in 1781, he entered on a brand new chapter of his career with a
sense of fresh possibility. The first few years of adjusting to the bustling imperial capital were exhausting and risky
but offered the opportunity to achieve the artistic and personal independence which had been unattainable in his
native Salzburg. Mozart had to work his way through the complexities of Viennese social and musical politics to
make it as a freelance artist who no longer depending on the security of steady patronage. He survived by devising
a combination of private lessons and an increasingly demanding series of concerts, usually featuring himself as
keyboard soloist.
The "Haffner" Symphony is a kind of bridge work dating from those first years in Vienna while also having ties to
Mozart's Salzburg past. Back in 1776, Mozart had been commissioned to write a serenade for the wedding of the
daughter of one of his hometown's powerbrokers, a wealthy merchant named Sigmund Haffner. This elaborate
and delightful serenade obviously left a lasting impression. In the summer of 1782, Haffner's son (the same age as
Mozart) received an aristocratic title, and to honor the occasion the family wanted more music from the same
source. Leopold Mozart (a friend of the Haffners) wrote to his son-now living in Vienna-to request a new
celebratory symphony.
But Mozart was already overextended with multiple projects. He couldn't manage to turn the request around with
his usual lightning speed and may even have missed the original deadline. Intensifying the stress was the fact that
just at this time Mozart was planning his own wedding in August-a match of which Leopold disapproved. The
scholar Neal Zaslaw has suggested that, on top of his work burden, Mozart may have experienced a creative block
owing to "disaffection toward Salzburg and anger at his father." Whatever feelings of resentment may have been
involved, Mozart unquestionably filtered them out of the music he did compose to produce one of his most
scintillating orchestral works. And of this new music, at least, Leopold expressed unstinting approval. "I am
delighted that the symphony is to your taste," responded Wolfgang.
In the summer of 1782 Mozart sent the new music to Papa in Salzburg movement by movement, as he completed
each, and then forgot all about it. The following spring, when he needed fresh material for one of his Vienna
concerts, Mozart looked the score over again and made some revisions (adding flutes and clarinets to his
orchestration for the outer movements, for example). In a letter to Leopold he remarked that "my new Haffner
symphony has positively amazed me, for I had forgotten every single note of it. It must surely produce a good
effect."
Mozart's prediction came true when it was played at his Vienna concert in March 1783. A contemporary
newspaper reported that among the "exceptionally large crowd" in attendance was the emperor, who stayed for
the whole concert "against his habit" and joined in "such animous [sic] applause as has never been heard of here."
The "Haffner" opens with a unison leap of joy, a two-octave-spanning smile that sets the spirited Allegro in motion.
Mozart wrote to Leopold that it "must be played with great fire." The movement is dominated by the character of
the opening theme-a kind of writing influenced by his friend Haydn and sometimes called "monothematicism."
Mozart even foregoes the conventional repeat of the exposition; the commentator Michael Steinberg surmises this
is because the movement's "striking tautness" and thematic concentration make that gesture unnecessary.
The G major Andante entertains with urbane pleasures, as if in spirited acknowledgement of Mozart's new public
in the big city. The Minuet by contrast evokes the festive, unforced mirth of Mozart's music for public celebrations
from the earlier Salzburg years. Mozart wanted the finale to be played "as fast as possible." You can hear a
premonition of the boisterous Figaro music to come in just a few years. Here the ambitious young Mozart seems
to celebrate not only his Salzburg friends of old but the liberating prospects of his new life in Vienna, where he was
just beginning to make his mark.

I. Allegro con spirito

II. Andante
III. Menuetto
IV. Presto

Composed 1782. First performance: March 23, 1783, Vienna Burgtheater.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is often called a “genius”—a label that for many composers has been more of a curse
than a blessing—but listening to his music, particularly the four works on this program, proves Mozart could wear
the crown lightly.

Following along from the early but brilliant Serenata notturna to the power of the "Haffner" Symphony, we can
retrace Mozart’s progress from a rebellious prodigy to a self-proclaimed king of the Viennese classic. This program
opens midway through that journey, with a moment of defiance in defeat. The Impresario Overture, now a staple
of symphonic concerts, was once Mozart’s opening salvo in a battle against Antonio Salieri. Der
Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), with a libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie, was Mozart’s entry into a contest of wit
and music at the invitation of the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II. In opposite ends of the orangery at Schönbrunn
Palace, Mozart’s German-language Singspielwas pitted against Salieri’s Italianate Prima la musica e poi le
parole (First the music, then the words) for the sake of imperial entertainment. Salieri aimed squarely for Mozart,
poking fun at his working relationship with his favorite librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. Mozart set his comic sights
higher, mocking the institution of opera as a whole, particularly the vanity of its performers. In a series of flashy
arias, the prima donnas Madame Herz (Mrs. Heart) and Mademoiselle Silberklang (Miss Silversound) compete for
the lead role, only to be outdone by the tenor, Herr Vogelsang (Mr. Birdsong). Perhaps because he had the last
word that evening, Salieri was declared the victor, but Mozart declared himself the better composer nonetheless.
With an assist from playwrights like Alexander Pushkin and Peter Shaffer, Mozart seems to have won in the long
run, with Salieri now better remembered as Mozart’s nemesis than as a composer in his own right. The overture
presents the comedy in miniature, swiftly under-cutting the bombast of its opening fanfares—reinforced by horns,
trumpets, and timpani—with giggling figures from the violins. Oboe, bassoon, and strings then present the sort of
lovely, naïve melody that characterized many Singspiel. (Are we hearing the voice of Madame Herz?) The following
turn to a Sturm und Drang version of the opening, cast in a darker minor mode, is Mozart with his tongue firmly in
cheek. The drama, he suggests, is all for show. For Mozart, nothing is sacred—particularly not opera.

The profanity of Mozart’s musical attitude might have been the root of his troubles in Salzburg. When Mozart and
his father Leopold had returned from Italy to Salzburg in the winter of 1771, the young musician’s growing
irreverence toward authority figures brought him up against the new Prince-Archbishop Hieronymous Colloredo.
While his predecessor had favored Leopold, Colloredo brought sweeping changes to court, civic, and church music
practices that were wholly unwelcome. Wolfgang and his father resented the importation of Italian composers
(although they seemed to like them as audiences just fine) and the curtailing of the university and civic
celebrations for which works like the Serenata notturno were usually created. In response, the young Mozart
withdrew from the musical life of the court and composed for the church with only half-hearted effort (still making
for some beautiful masses). As if to spite the Prince-Archbishop by rejecting both his domains, he devoted most of
his effort to chamber works for the enjoyment of private patrons. This serenade in D major for two orchestras—
one of solo violins, viola, and double bass, and the other of strings and timpani—has some of the pomp and
circumstance of the Finalmusik (graduation music) Mozart had written for the Benedictine University in Salzburg
before Colloredo’s crackdown. The serenade begins with dignified fanfares and a light-footed march, fulfilling its
typical function as outdoor music performed to greet persons of rank. In the following menuet, however, Mozart
turns toward the other sense of a serenade known to Salzburgers: a love song for the evening, or Abend-
Ständchen. For a time, Mozart made the customer a king and hailed him appropriately, but we can also hear the
twenty-year-old Mozart’s thoughts turning to romance.

The father and son struggle with Colloredo ended in their dual dismissal, so Leopold charged his son to seek
employment in Mannheim, well known at the time for the quality of its orchestra and the generosity of its patrons.
Mozart found just such a benefactor in Ferdinand de Jean, a physician who accumulated his wealth working for the
Dutch East India Company. A lover of music and amateur flutist himself, de Jean requested three flute concertos
and two flute quartets from Mozart. Unfortunately for de Jean, Mozart also met Aloisia Weber, the elder sister of
Constanze (the woman he would eventually marry). Smitten despite her rejection of him, Mozart never finished
the commission, but did find time to write Aloisia an aria. Later, despite her marriage to actor Joseph Lange, he
wrote her a whole operatic role in (you guessed it) Der Schauspieldirektor, as Madame Herz. Other than the
Concerto in C Major, K. 315, it is difficult to say when Mozart got around to finishing the requested flute concerti
(he never did write the quartets). That said, this Concerto in G Major, K. 313 is definitely a case of “better late than
never.” The first movement maintains a balance between the poise and clear harmonic outlines of a traditional
sonata form and the dramatic flair expected in a concerto. However, we soon hear the composer’s mind wander,
lost in the hesitant caresses of the adagio. The final rondo is perhaps more coy than impressive, showing flashes of
virtuosic heat but always retreating to the lilting flirtatiousness of its opening melody.

Although audiences today revere Mozart as a member of the pantheon of classical music, he was never elevated to
the ranks of the earthly nobility. His friend, Sigmund Haffner, however, did receive just such a promotion. In honor
of the occasion, Mozart composed one of his grander symphonies at the time, scored at first for Salzburg with
pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns, and trumpets in addition to timpani and strings, and further embellished for
Vienna with flutes and clarinets added to the outer movements. The choice of key—D major—would likewise have
been heard as celebratory and ennobled, since it was one of the few keys available to the rather limited
capabilities of eighteenth century trumpets. The first movement projects power and drama, with its martial dotted
rhythms, bold leaps, cascading scalar figures, and striking dynamic contrasts between winds and strings. This
primary material is then treated to an ingenious and thorough contrapuntal development in an assertion of
compositional, rather than military mastery. Even the typically contrasting secondary theme is more majestic than
lyrical. The Adagio retreats to an idyllic space, more softly inflected in a way reminiscent of Mozart’s Salzburger
style, as heard in the serenade (also in D major). Even the regular phrasing patterns of the third movement are
similar to the “sturdy” minuets of his time in Salzburg (to borrow A. Peter Brown’s apt description). In bookending
the symphony with sonata forms in the first and fourth movements, he signals its import, if not its weight. With
Mozart’s instruction that it should be performed as fast as the orchestra can manage while maintaining clarity, the
fourth movement leans forward without quite falling into a headlong rush. In this symphony on the whole—which
balances the majestic, the learned, and the fleet and stylish galant—we can hear the coming of
the Jupiter Symphony in C major (so called by the London public) at the height of his career. Not yet to the point of
being declared a god among men, in the "Haffner" Symphony Mozart elevates his friend at the same time as he
places the compositional crown on his own head.

Antonio Vivaldi
Double Cello Concerto, for 2 cellos, strings & continuo in G minor, RV 531

Vivaldi's only concerto for the unusual combination of two cellos was probably, like so many of his concertos,
written for the all-girl orchestra of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, with which he was associated for some four
decades. The tone color of the paired cellos and the minor key help to account for the relatively somber sound of
the work. The cellos announce their presence at the very beginning of the energetic opening Allegro, which also
features a particularly attractive interlude in the major mode. The solo instruments sometimes harmonize with
one another, at other times respond to one another in canonic imitation. After a songful Largo of rather grave
beauty, the work concludes with an extroverted Allegro.

Vivaldi left only one ‘double’ concerto for cellos: RV531 in G minor. In all probability, this was composed for the Pietà
during the 1720s. Its electrifying, cadenza-like opening leaves one in no doubt of its highly charged emotional
content. Its slow movement, styled as that of a trio sonata, breathes an almost autobiographical sadness. Its frenetic
finale, see-sawing in rhythm and tonality alike, keeps one on the edge of one’s seat. This is a concerto to single out
among the hundreds that Vivaldi wrote.

JOHN WILLIAMS

Even when the movies were “silent,” they had sound—the sound of live musical performance,
whether played by an orchestra (in the largest metropolitan centers), by a theater organ elaborately
equipped with extra sound effects, or (in small towns) by a lone pianist. At first most musical
performances were cobbled together from collections of musical excerpts drawn from classical and
popular sources and labeled "chase music," "love music," "tension," "scary," "patriotic," "battle," and
so on. The theater organist or pianist had to assemble a "score" from these short extracts,
improvising at each showing of the film. (Often the player had not even seen the film before a first
showing, and had to choose the musical selections as it was running -- all without stopping the
music!

Eventually special scores were actually prepared by composers--the first one composed by Camille
Saint-Saëns for a film on the assassination of Henri IV. The score was sent around with the film for
performance in the theater.

The role of the composer was crucial in setting the mood of the film, whether he simply arranged
familiar tunes (as in the elaborate patchwork of quotations assembled by J. C. Breil for D. W.
Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation in 1914, a kind of worked-out improvisation) or created something
completely original, such as Victor Herbert’s remarkable 100-minute orchestral score for The Fall of a
Nation in 1916. At first the music had to be played live, which meant that different audiences might
hear the music in different ways, possibly matched to the image but not always very precisely!

The coming of the “talkies” in the late 1920s allowed music to be permanently wedded to the film.
While this development meant hardship and widespread unemployment among theater musicians, it
made possible at last a reliable coordination of image and score.
Many 20th century composers have written significant music for films, including Prokofiev,
Shostakovich, Milhaud, Honegger, Walton, Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland, and Virgil Thomson.
A number of composers became so thoroughly involved with the form that they are primarily
identified as film composers, though many of them—Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Franz
Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, and John Williams, for example—have also written many concert
works or other non-film scores.
The composer of a film score must add to his training in music theory, composition, and
orchestration a sense of dramatic timing and color, an awareness of many musical styles, and an
ability to choose the most appropriate and expressive treatment for a given situation, whether it be
light romantic comedy (Gidget Goes to Rome), disaster epic (The Towering Inferno), a taut adventure
(Jaws), science fiction (especially Star Wars), historical drama (Schindler’s List), or magical fantasy
(E.T. and the Harry Potter films), to consider types represented among John Williams’ scores over
nearly a half century. And the composer is limited to an exact running time in seconds (or tenths of
seconds!), a challenge that composers rarely had to face in other situations, even opera and ballet.

Though he has long since become a Californian who has adopted the calm, easy-going surface that
easterners associate with people from the Golden State, John Williams was born in New York in
1932. He moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1948, where he attended UCLA and studied
composition privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. By this time he had already showed talent
as a pianist. After service in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to New York in 1955 to study piano at
the Juilliard School with Rosina Lhevinne. He worked as a jazz pianist and also, after returning to
Los Angeles, as a pianist and orchestrator in the film studios. But more and more he turned to
composing, having already worked (as assistant and orchestrator) with some of the giants of film
composition, including his idol Bernard Herrmann. Most of his early experience was in television, but
eventually he concentrated on the feature films for which he produced some of the most famous and
beloved music of our time.

In the early years he accepted a wide range of assignments, demonstrating his ability to capture a
suitable style and mood for many different types of stories. Any film composer who enjoys a success
in a given film runs the risk of being typecast and asked to compose the same kind of music again
and again. Early on he seemed likely to be the composer of choice for disaster epics like The
Towering Inferno. But when Steven Spielberg asked him to write the score for Jaws, it turned out to
be the start of a career-long relationship for both of them, and a particularly happy one for Williams,
because Spielberg made a range of films that offered the composer opportunities of great variety.
The other major step in his career was with the first episode of the Star Wars franchise. When it
appeared in 1977, many directors and producers had given up on full-scale original scores. They
had found that a simple selection of pop songs strung together on the sound track would cost less,
and could be sold separately from the film as a “soundtrack” recording. It came as a shock—an
exciting and delightful shock—to many young filmgoers to hear the symphonically-conceived score
for full orchestra that John Williams created for the space epic, drawing upon the rich romantic
sounds of the late 19th century, on Wagner's leitmotiv technique creating and reworking specific
themes for characters and events, while also paying homage to his heroes in the field, Herrmann
and Korngold. (The opening fanfare of Star Wars is a particular act of homage to Korngold, echoing
for its opening notes the theme of Korngold's score for King’s Row.)
When Williams scored The Cowboys (1972), in which John Wayne was forced by circumstance to
take a group of schoolboys as the trail hands driving his cattle to market--and turning them into real
cowboys in the process--there was no overture in the traditional sense of the word, just a vivid score
in the style of traditional western films, with energetic themes, a sense of great open space, and the
hint of adventure to come. In 1980, when he was named music director of the Boston Pops, he
wanted to open his first concert with that title with a new work of his own; he took themes from The
Cowboys and shaped them into a traditional orchestral overture, which has since become a widely
recognized concert piece in its own right.
Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989) was a different matter altogether--the true story of a
young man who joins the Marines to go to Vietnam, is severely wounded and left a paraplegic, and
slowly comes to feel that the war was a mistake and a fraud. It starred Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, the
gung-ho soldier who becomes a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. For a musical
emblem of Kovic's aloneness, the painful realization that no one at home could understand the
torments of combat and the agonizing loss that he--and the country--suffered, John Williams created
a score featuring a solitary trumpet sounding over a low-pitched mass of strings. The solo part has a
sturdy, poignant, heroic quality that is nonetheless infused throughout with pain and lamentation.
Another film with a historical theme, Spielberg's 2012 Lincoln, featuring Daniel Day-Lewis's
astonishing performance as the President, was an unusual Civil War story, with little in the way of
actual battlefield heroics so common to other epics dealing with the subject. It concentrated instead
on the challenge set to Lincoln by his argumentative cabinet that held strongly opposed views on the
question of emancipation and whether or how Lincoln should work toward it. John Williams's score is
more internalized, more psychological, in evoking Lincoln's thoughts and ideas, than we normally
expect from a "war" movie.
By contrast, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is a film of high adventure, and unlikely adventure at that,
in the style of the old Saturday matinee serials that showed 15 minutes at a time always breaking off
at a moment of cliff-hanging tension to bring the youthful audience back the following Saturday for
another episode. But in the case of Spielberg's film, all the cliff-hangers came one right after the
other with heroic actions, dry humor on the part of the hero, romance, and finally a breathtaking
conclusion. Throughout all the breathtaking pace of chase and pursuit, Williams's heroic "Raiders
March" captured in its opening phrase the readiness for action of a seemingly quiet academic
archeologist who appeared for the first time in this film with such success that a whole series of
sequels featured Indiana Jones.
The 1979 film 1941 was billed as a comedy evoking hysteria near Los Angeles over a possible
Japanese attack on the mainland soon after the surprise at Pearl Harbor that shocked the entire
nation. Though it has many funny moments, most critics and viewers found it less satisfying as a
whole, and it has generally fallen into the background among Spielberg's many most successful
films. But one aspect of the film was instantly celebrated and remains a popular hit--another superb,
even over-the-top, John Williams’ march, which may well have attracted as many people into the
theater to see the film as any trailer or Spielberg's reputation.
When the hugely successful Harry Potter novels began to be put on film, John Williams was the
obvious choice to compose the score. Adventure and fantasy were elements he had successfully
dealt with previously, and J.K. Rowling's novels were full of both. In addition, he was writing music
for the film of a book that his grandson had read with delight, so there was perhaps a special
additional impetus. In the end, he wrote the scores for the first three of the eight Harry Potter films.
For Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone he created many of the themes that would naturally reappear
in later films relating to the principal characters and events, to Hogwarts, and to the special feeling of
magic that pervades the story; many of these themes were naturally taken up by the composers who
scored the last five films: Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper, and Alexandre Desplat.
As mentioned earlier, Star Wars became the medium through which John Williams was established,
not only among Hollywood directors and other insiders, but with the public at large, as a composer
who could provide lyrical, rhythmic, colorful satisfaction again and again, in films, in music for public
events such as the Olympics or the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, and many others. For this
adventure score, there is music for the heroes, the lovers (or potential lovers), characters who turn
out to be a brother and sister, the villainous Darth Vader, the various peoples on different planets,
and so on. All of these build into a musical climax in each of the three films of the first series of films.
The full-scale orchestral score that accompanied most of the film revived the approach that had
been essential to adventurous films from the late 1930s to about the mid-1950s, and with such
success that there can be few listeners anywhere who do not recognize this music immediately.
In 1982, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came as a real surprise, following up on the far-reaching space
adventures of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (the final entry into the trilogy, The Return of the
Jedi, was not to come until 1983). Despite the title's promise of a creature from outer space, it took
place not in the far future, but in present day Los Angeles and dealt with a broken family, especially
a sad young boy who finds the courage to help the non-scary extra-terrestrial to "phone home" and
be picked up by his people. The score has been regarded from the beginning as one of the finest in
the history of film, especially the exciting close, in which E.T. helps the boys fly in their bikes as they
are racing to meet the space shape and evade the authorities who want to take the unusual visitor
into custody for research. During the final 15 minutes or so, the score becomes positively operatic,
even though no one is singing. The flying, the emotional farewell between E.T. and Elliott, and the
departure of the ship elevated the mood of everyone in the theater.