One of James Horner's earlier blockbuster outings, Willow is fondly remembered by some (mostly, relatives of the filmmakers) and not so fondly by others (mostly, people who have seen it).  It was Horner's first collaboration with Ron Howard, and in keeping with most of the others it features many fine moments that showcase the composer at his best, while featuring some shocking moments of plagiarism.  (The exception is Ransom, which features neither fine moments nor plagiarism, but is just awful.)  People get so bored by nasty critics like myself criticising Horner for his plagiarism, but I think many people have lost sight of the fact that while these days he only tends to copy himself - something that all film composers do - there was a time when he would shamelessly pass off the work of others as being by himself.  One of his all-time most shameless and shocking thefts is here in Willow, with the celebrated main theme being directly lifted from a Schumann symphony.  What makes Horner so hard to like are the things he says in interviews.  If he acknowledged that he hadn't written the music himself, as other film composers tend to, he would be the subject of so much less criticism and have a far higher place in people's hearts, but he says the most ridiculous things.  Having spent the early years of his career rearranging the scores of Jerry Goldsmith and passing them off as his own, he claimed never to have even heard of Goldsmith; and about Willow, he said "the main theme of Willow is more Eastern European in nature. It's the kind of approach that a Western European composer might not take for this genre."  Schumann was, needless to say, Western European.

Anyway, that's the bad.  The good is that whoever composed it, the main theme is really terrific, very exciting and perfect for the movie.  The other main theme, a sweeping romantic ballad (that is, I'm pleased to report, completely original as far as I know!) is certainly one of Horner's very finest.  It marked Horner's first use of the Japenese flute the sakauhachi, and whereas later he used it almost as a sound effect to mark impending doom, here it is used in a melodic way and is actually very attractive.  Other highlights are many, with some thrilling action music (often based on Schumann's theme), particularly "Escape from the Tavern" and "Tir Asleen".  There's also some lovely mystical music with female choir that's similar to Alan Silvestri's work on The Abyss (which came later).

Unfortunately, the other criticism I make on a semi-regular basis about Horner is that his albums are too long.  Now, I've actually received death threats about doing so (I'm not kidding) so I shall try to tread carefully, but so many of Horner's albums just go on and on.  There are so many fine moments in Willow, why dilute them by including so much dull music?  Why not just chop the dull bits out?  Any music editor could do it.  At 40-45 minutes this would be a grade-A, first-class album (plagiarism notwithstanding).  At 75 minutes it's only half satisfying.

Now, I'm sure that most die-hard Horner fans stopped reading my site ages ago so there's probably not much point in me asking them exactly why so many consider this to be one of Horner's very finest scores when to my ears at least, about half of it is deadly dull and in the other half, the main theme isn't even by Horner.  But still.  The half that is good, is very good, so for that I must recommend it, but with reservations.

Buy this CD by clicking here!

Tracks