Jurassic park
JOHN WILLIAMS/ GeffeN
After his ’70s and ’80s hits, John Williams’ evolution didn’t slow down. Into the early ’90s, he sometimes transcended his material (Hook), sometimes met it (Schindler’s List). Few composers could birth another pure classic in the same year as the latter, yet Williams’ Isla Nublar jaunt stands tall among his great works. Twenty-five years on, it still roars with vivid life.
Modestly, Williams played down his dino-score glory: “It’s a rugged, noisy effort – a massive job of symphonic cartooning.” Yet it’s so much more. For Jurassic, Williams channelled his earlier work’s romantic sweep through the rhythmic density of his ’90s output, then wove both around the film’s multi-stranded tonal reaches with a robust elasticity. It’s a score rippling with wonder, whimsy, adventure and horror, all roped to a cluster of tunes you’d call ‘cast-iron’ by any standards.
Certainly, ‘Theme From Jurassic Park’’s melody is so indelible you almost miss how carefully Williams connects our awestruck reactions to on-screen PoVs. Williams’ how-toplay-it instruction on the sheet music
is telling: “Reverentially.” Just as Sam Neill ogles the brachiosaurus, so the score circles one low note as if hypnotised: as the strings and hymnal choir mount majestically, Williams’ controlled, dino-steady tread keeps our focus rapt. Welcome to Jurassic Park…
Conversely, ‘Opening Titles’ portends terrors in its opening footfall of percussion and ominous four-note melody; harbingers of incoming horrors both. ‘Incident At Isla Nublar’ sets a panic-attack pitch, hatching themes later developed in ‘The Raptor Attack’’s DNA-splice of Jaws/Bernard Herrmann. At another extreme, a thrilled sense of incoming adventure blooms on ‘Journey To The Island’, sweeping you up on grand gusts of brass, strings, cymbals and timpani. If it’s astonishing how much ground Williams covers without losing his way, it’s also notable in retrospect how Jurassic bridged his past and future highs.
‘Hatching Baby Raptor’ evokes spectral E.T.s and Hogwarts tingles. ‘My Friend, The Brachiosaurus’ glows with romanticism; ‘Dennis Steals The Embryo’ shivers with tension. ‘Welcome To Jurassic Park’ is wet-eyed, ‘Remembering Petticoat Lane’ wistful. Finally, Williams rallies his resources for the Raiders-nodding ‘Eye To Eye’ and freshly aggressive ‘T-Rex Rescue & Finale’, such that ‘End Credits’ arrives with a near-palpable sense of release.
The score’s actual release history is fuzzy. While some issues scrambled the chronological order, a limited-edition two-disc release incorporated missed cuts. But the score itself remains a wondrous model of symphonic clarity amid contrast, dusted with melodies at no risk of extinction. Reverence is due. Kevin Harley