|
Back
Saturday Afternoon at the Movies Bogotá
Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo
04/19/2025 -
John Williams: Star Wars Suite, Harry Potter Suite, Jurassic Park Suite, Indiana Jones (Raiders March), Soundtracks to Jaws, E.T., Catch Me If You Can, Born on the Fourth of July and Saving Private Ryan
Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Steven Mercurio (Conductor)
S. Mercurio (© Juan Diego Castillo/Courtesy of the Bogotá International Classical Music Festival)
On the last day of the Bogotá es América Siglos XX y XXI festival, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra played a sold out matinée concert of music by John Williams. This was in stark contrast with a much more serious one given by the same orchestra the previous day that featured music by Copland, Barber and Dvorák. It also attracted an altogether different crowd of mostly children and adolescents accompanied by parents and grandparents. Given the longevity of Williams’ career, most of the content featured was from films seen by the elders at the time of the films’ release. Given their adventure/science fiction themes, they would hold obvious appeal for the younger generation.
It’s amazing how many blockbusters John Williams scored. Horror/science fiction hits such as Jurassic Park and Jaws were full of darkness and foreboding. Conductor Steven Mercurio managed to emphasize the appropriate tempi and to accentuate certain sounds to bring out the inherent fear and menace in the scores.
In contrast, Schindler’s List, the most appealing piece in the program, was sentimental and replete with pathos. Mercurio managed to bring out the anguish of the score without overstating it. The first violin generated an appealingly bittersweet sound. At the end, the enthusiastic public were ecstatic.
The score to Catch Me If You Can, with its jazzy opening, was another stark contrast. Evocative of the 1950s and 1960s, the repetitive leitmotif brought an atmosphere of suspense and even menace, evocative of iconic Hitchcock scores by Bernard Herrmann (1911‑1975). The sarcastically abrupt finale brought a smile to many in the audience.
Appropriate bombast was reserved for “The Imperial March” from Star Wars, the encore of the concert. This piece, reminiscent of “March of the Knights” from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, had a hypnotic effect that made the public roar with excitement at the end.
The audience was entranced by the top quality of the Czech orchestra. Though the musical fare was light, one hopes the rich sonority of a live orchestra, especially one of this quality, will whet the appetite of a younger public for grand orchestral sounds. This may have been a family outing, but it was surely also a pedagogic experience.
Ossama el Naggar
|
