Music
RSNO - The Music of John Williams, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
Alison Kerr
Four stars
Of all the concerts of film music that are now staged throughout the year, one body of work – more than any other – seems able to attract all age groups: the music of John Williams. After all, Williams wrote the scores for the films which have loomed largest in the childhoods of those who have grown up in the last 40-odd years, so it's little surprise that concerts which celebrate his music are regarded as family entertainment.
Not that the RSNO's latest Williams-themed programme, which was performed twice in Glasgow on Saturday, was dominated by the big blockbuster scores for which Steven Spielberg's go-to composer is most renowned. Instead, it offered a more rounded and broader snapshot of the great man's output.
The overture of The Cowboys, a little-remembered 1972 John Wayne western, proved a rousing opener, an enjoyable, toe-tapping composition, highly derivative of Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven theme, while Williams's 1971 Jane Eyre Symphonic Suite, with its magical, swirling woodwind and menacing undertones, displayed the DNA of his later themes for both Harry Potter and The Witches of Eastwick - the Devil's Dance from which was one of the biggest highlights of the concert.
In conductor-presenter Richard Kaufman, Williams is lucky to have an eloquent and enthusiastic champion for his work - and the RSNO is fortunate to have Kaufman, with his direct links to Williams, as the next best thing to having the composer himself on the podium. Among the numerous stand-outs of the dynamic second half were the beautiful and atmospheric suite for Memoirs of a Geisha, which featured cello star Johannes Moser, and - of course - two of the iconic Williams marches, from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the superhero super score which started it all, Superman.
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