We’ve had to wait a few years for the second compilation of film music recorded by the Swiss-based City Light Symphony Orchestra – it was back in 2021 that their debut recording, Spotlight on John Williams, was released. I thought it was one of the most impressive Williams compilations conducted by someone other than the man himself and it was a thoughtfully-produced album.
Williams figures quite prominently on this second release too, but the scope goes beyond just him this time – The Sound of Adventure is another top recording, this time of a wide array of music from (sometimes slightly tenuously) big Hollywood adventure movies. Again the orchestra is under the baton of Kevin Griffiths and again he elicits notably impressive performances.
The first few selections come from more traditional swashbuckling adventure movies, starting with a more modern one in the genre, The Mask of Zorro. The eight-minute suite covers a lot of ground from James Horner’s magnificent score – the big main theme, romance and action – it’s very entertaining. Then after it (perhaps sequenced with a wry smile) are two pieces from a score which was clearly an inspiration to Horner – Miklós Rózsa’s El Cid. The lengthy love theme is truly exquisite, one of the composer’s most beautiful, and the famous overture never loses its appeal. Both are handled with aplomb by the orchestra and David Castro-Balbi’s violin solo in the love theme is very beautiful.
Erich Wolfgang Korngold is one of the composers most associated with this genre during Hollywood’s Golden Age and he is represented by The Adventures of Robin Hood – though not the more predictable choice, it is in fact the love theme that is highlighted here. Much less well known is Ron Goodwin’s Lancelot and Guinevere but his terrific, slightly Rózsa-like main theme can stand very much its own ground even against the heavyweights around it. This section of the album concludes with John Debney’s incredible end credit piece from Cutthroat Island, “It’s Only Gold”, sounding crisp and as entertaining as ever. I’m not sure any modern film score (if something from 1995 can still be described as modern, anyway) better captures that swashbuckling spirit than this.
We move to a very different kind of adventure next, as Williams makes his first appearance, through his theme from Seven Years in Tibet. I know that Williams’s catalogue of “greatest hits” is so enormous but I’m a bit surprised that this one didn’t become part of the standard concert repertoire – it’s such a dazzlingly beautiful piece of music. I’ve already complimented his brother’s violin solo on El Cid so it’s only right to also give a mention to Alexandre Castro-Balbi’s cello solo here – given the original was written for Yo-Yo Ma he has big shoes to fill and he does himself proud. Rounding out the first disc is the end title piece from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, featuring all of that score’s wonderful themes – including of course the most famous adventure theme of them all.
Disc two begins with a spirited rendition of Goodwin’s barnstorming theme from 633 Squadron – such a rousing musical representation of flight – and then the only Jerry Goldsmith piece here, the end title from Star Trek: First Contact. His indelible Star Trek theme sounds great and the First Contact theme itself as the meat in the sandwich has always been a favourite.
Back to John Williams next – and as far as I know this is the first ever recording of his concert arrangement of the theme from the first Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World (bizarrely the composer didn’t even record it for the third volume of his Steven Spielberg collaboration albums) – it is a bit different to the album arrangement we all know from 1997 and Griffiths’s reading of it here is pure dynamite – there is so much energy, the pace almost reaches fever-pitch. And of course it’s a knockout of a theme, very much the sound of adventure.
After a brief dalliance with Alan Silvestri – the composer’s arrangement of his themes from the original Back to the Future and the western and love themes from the third film, all of which are amongst the composer’s very best – come another three tracks from Williams. From Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban we get “A Window to the Past” (quite different from the piece by that name on the soundtrack album – again I assume this is the Williams concert arrangement – the first half is similar but the second is a broader, more sweeping take on the material) and the dynamite “Buckbeat’s Flight”, and finally ET’s “Adventure on Earth” about which little needs to be said.
The rest of the album is taken up by music from Star Wars. It’s actually Michael Giacchino first – the three suites of his main themes from Rogue One, “Hyn Erso and Hope”, “The Imperial Suite” and “The Guardian of the Whills”. I’ve always been impressed by Giacchino’s approach to the score, finding a happy medium where he wrote music that was identifiably his but also stylistically consistent with the established sound of the musical universe – and these three pieces are all great (I have a particular soft spot for the third).
Back to the main man himself to end the album – first his busy, rambunctious theme from Solo and finally his current concert version of The Empire Strikes Back’s “Han Solo and the Princess” – it’s not the first recording of that arrangement, but it is the best, and the melody itself is a wonderful throwback to a more Golden Age sound and therefore a fitting way of concluding this set.
If anything I think this album is even better than the orchestra’s previous one – the performance is first-rate, and conductor Griffiths brings a real energy to so many of the pieces. The whole thing has clearly been put together by people who genuinely love the repertoire, which is a boon to the rest of us who love it. The recordings were actually made back in 2021 and reports suggest an album of John Barry music is also already in the can – if it’s as good as the two albums we’ve now got then we’ll be in for another treat when that one sees the light of day. Bravo to all concerned, The Sound of Adventure will be a great pleasure for everyone who loves classic orchestral film music.
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