Jerry Goldsmith scored two films about World War 2 during 1970 - some of you may have heard of the other, Patton. Tora! Tora! Tora! was unusual (and excellent), and still probably unique: it told the story of the battle of Pearl Harbour from the point of view of both the Americans and the Japanese. The American segments were directed by Richard Fleischer, director of Fantastic Voyage (scored of course by Leonard Rosenman) and featured many reliable actors who were not A-list stars, such as Martin Balsam and Jason Robards; while the Japanese portions were overseen by Akira Kurosawa, who directed some sections himself.

Just as Patton is an exercise in calculated spotting by the composer, so too is Tora! Tora! Tora! - again, there is barely more than half an hour's music in the three-hour movie. Most of the music is filled with Japanese sonorities (Goldsmith had already established himself as something of an expert in Asian music, or at least a westernised version of it, with scores such as The Spiral Road and The Chairman) and there is absolutely no conformity to the traditional way of scoring a war movie. There are no US-style marches at all, and barely even any music composed within a standard western idiom.

The main title theme is superb: first performed in the opening track by a koto, then taken up by the full orchestra, it represents the martial rigidity of the Japanese forces and also their unquestionable honour - and all in three minutes! It's rarely mentioned as one of Goldsmith's finest, though it undoubtedly is. The rest of the score cannot quite live up to the expectations provided by the opening, however. Most impressive are the sections where Goldsmith creates an unnerving soundscape designed to represent the inhuman nature of war; though unfortunately there are a few sequences of suspense music that are not especially interesting. Some of the more violent sections make for very challenging listening, and certainly recall the techniques employed by Goldsmith in Planet of the Apes (though instruments are used in their intended way, here) - these sections are probably the most rewarding in the score, however.

There was a 12-minute suite released by Varèse Sarabande on the same album as their Patton re-recording in 1997, though unfortunately the concert hall acoustic lost most of the beautiful detail inherent in the music, and the performance was distinctly less than tight: this release by Film Score Monthly rectifies each of these problems, presenting the whole score, well-performed, with wonderful sound. There are also a few bonus tracks of source music, which are nice to have from a completist's point of view, but are unlikely to trouble the interior of my CD player on too many occasions; most bizarre are the two light pop arrangements of the main theme, which are ill-advised, to say the least.

This is an excellent, especially well-constructed score; unfortunately, I suspect that what could be described in a nutshell as "a Japanese version of Planet of the Apes" is unlikely to appeal to many of Goldsmith's younger listeners, who probably find Rudy just that bit too complex. His longer-term fans, however, should find much to appreciate in this album, not least of which the stunning main theme (which sounds like a different piece from the re-recorded Varèse version).