John Williams

Those victorious starbursts of horn, strings that lift us into realms of magic and fantasy and — perhaps most memorable of all — the pulse-quickening tuba that signals the approach of cinema's ultimate man-eating shark . . . you are now in the world of film score composer John Williams whose presence is a prerequisite in any blockbuster worth its salt: we open here with the big themes from Star Wars, Superman and Jaws.

Williams shows us his expertise with variations on familiar themes, in Next Steps.

We've all hummed John Williams' best known title tracks — all of them etched deep into our musical memory banks — but the subtleties of his secondary movie themes are every bit as engrossing. There's an assured romantic touch on the "Love Theme From Superman," perfectly conveyed with a weightless oboe weaving its graceful path through the score's root melody, and an uplifting sense of nobility in "Yoda's Theme" from The Empire Strikes Back.

There's far more to Williams than the spirit-lifting barnstormer . . . as you'll discover in Next Steps.

Here, among the rousing mainstays of Williams' high profile partnerships with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, we've added a few pieces that have nothing to do with swashbuckling adventure and reflect more serious concerns: the mournful strains of "Munich, 1972" from Spielberg's Munich speak of pain and inhumanity, while the light woodwind touches of "The Tale of Viktor Navorski" —from The Terminal — succeed in combining comically bizarre and lovably human elements.

John Williams started out, after college (UCLA, Juilliard) and a stint in the Air Force, as a jazz pianist, then followed his father — who had worked as a musician for movie studios — onto the Hollywood payroll, cutting his teeth on a variety of assignments for the small and big screen during the '50s and '60s. He famously hooked up with Steven Spielberg for the director's first cinema-released feature, The Sugarland Express (1974), and the partnership flourished, as did his collaboration with George Lucas. From Jaws through the Stars Wars series and the Harry Potter films, Williams defined the sound of the blockbuster. Enjoy our selection of great pieces from his incredible career to date.