John Williams: Treesong; Violin Concerto; 3 Pieces from Schindler's List
Though best known for his film scores, John Williams also has to his credit numerous orchestral works and concertos for string and wind instruments, which were often tailored to specific players. One of these isTreeSong, composed and premiered in 2000 by its dedicatee, the splendid violinist Gil Shaham. Clearly written to his strengths, it exploits Shaham's brilliant technique with two cadenzas and lots of fast passages, which display his sumptuous, beautiful tone in warm, singing melodies and its silvery radiance in long stretches in the highest register. The piece begins and ends in dreamy languor. It is full of sound effects, but despite an explanatory note by the composer, its connection to the ancient tree that inspired it is not perceptible to the naked ear. The orchestrations are inventive and colorful, and both here and in the Concerto, written in 1974 and revised in 1998, there are substantial, massive orchestral interludes, while the solo passages are carefully scored for maximal transparency. The Concerto is somewhat reminiscent of Prokofiev, especially in the angularity of the fast sections and the shimmering stratospheric ones. It is dedicated to Williams's late wife, but only the end of the slow movement has an elegiac air, then the orchestra leads into the Finale with all stops out. The Three Pieces fromSchindler's Listare well known. Shaham, though he slides a lot in keeping with the style and quasi-Jewish idiom, plays them with great feeling but so much nobility that the lamentatiousness never becomes cheap or sentimental.--Edith Eisler