Jurassic Park

John Williams. 1993.

You’ll like it… If you can see the T-Rex through a child’s eyes: big, powerful, fascinating and awesome. Because that’s how this soundtrack is.

Avoid it… If your musical taste is closer to the contention of Schindler’s list, ‘cos Jurassic Park is completely the opposite.

In 1993, the ‘usual suspects’ Steven Spielberg and John Williams obtained an impressive and unanimous cinematographic and musical success with Schindler’s list. A so positive reception had, as consecuence, the total eclipse of their previous collaboration that same year: an adventures and horror story titled Jurassic Park.

In a way, Jurassic Park meant for both director and composer returning to a genre they had already worked with before: that one about fantastic creatures of Nature that put the protagonists in difficulties. In 1975 it had been Jaws, and this time were… dinosaurs. However, the approach to both stories is very different. In the former, the inhabitants of a small coast village face a predator that stays hidden, and that suspense was so masterfully presented in Williams’ music that, with only two notes, it still remains in the social imaginary. In Jurassic Park, on the other hand, the dinosaurs are the undisputed protagonists.

Instead of presenting them as terrible creatures, Williams prefers to focus on how wonderful it would be to have them walking on Earth again, and writes two melodic themes for them. The first, ‘Theme from Jurassic Park’, is full with nobility and tenderness. The second, introduced in ‘Journey to the island’, is an epic fanfare like those which only Williams know how to write, representing both the Isla Nublar itself and its particular inhabitants. Along the score, both themes combine masterfully, expressing a ‘sense of wonder’ that may remind you of E.T. the extra-terrestrial (1982).

The sinister side of the story comes by hand of the lethal raptors, and for them the master conspires a violent, disonant theme (‘The raptor attack’), with the brass section sounding in the lower register of the scale in a creepy progression. Along with this, ‘Incident at Isla Nublar’ also creates uneasiness using crescendos and arpeggios that will return, with the orchestra at maximum power, in ‘High-wire stunts’. In an obvious selecction of instruments, he uses electronic percussion (similar in style to that one from JFK) for the only theme that points at the presence of people in the island: ‘Dennis steals the embryo’.

‘Eye to eye’ and ‘T-Rex rescue & finale’ are a whole exercise of skill for the players, because the score asks for constant changes of velocity, intensity, strength and restraint as the climax aproaches, arriving with a spectacular rendition of the epic fanfare, musically stating that, at Isla Nublar, the dinosaurs rule.

In album, Jurassic Park soundtrack is astonishing. Instead of strictly follow the movie’s chronological order, Williams presents the main themes as concert suites (something usual in his work, for that matter), helping a pleasant listening experience.

Although it was overshadowed by the, for some superior, Schindler’s list, Jurassic Park soundtrack is John Williams at his best, as it was not heard since his glorious period of the early 80′s (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981; E.T. The extra-terrestrial, 1982, or Return of the Jedi, 1983), and it wouldn’t be heard again, not even for his come back to George Luca’s galactic saga.

Tracklist:

1. Opening titles (0:33)
2. Theme from Jurassic Park (3:27)
3. Incident at Isla Nublar (5:20)
4. Journey to the island (8:52)
5. The raptor attack (2:49)
6. Hatching baby raptor (3:20)
7. Welcome to Jurassic Park (7:54)
8. My friend, the brachiosaurus (4:16)
9. Dennis steals the embryo (4:55)
10. A tree for my bed (2:12)
11. High-wire stunts (4:08)
12. Remembering Petticoat Lane (2:48)
13. Jurassic Park gate (2:03)
14. Eye to eye (6:32)
15. T-Rex rescue & Finale (7:39)
16. End credits (3:26)