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•	1991 Album

•	2021 Album

•	1991 Album

The orchestral elements of The Eiger Sanction are all common to Williams' bigger scores of the era, the breadth of performance emphasis impressively balanced around the ensemble. But it's the specialty instruments that will either float or sink this score for most listeners. The composer opted to supply Eastwood's main character with the harpsichord's Baroque main theme while also addressing the espionage, intrigue, and romance elements with contemporary electric bass, various guitars, synthetic keyboarding, and accordion, sometimes in conjunction with the real and electronically derived harpsichord contributions, making for a unique blend of modern and retro tones at the time that together now sounds rather badly dated. The harpsichord and its primary theme are clearly meant to play towards the art professor side of the assassin, and with that is meant some dose of commensurate sophistication. But that relatively formal daintiness in both the progressions of the theme and its harpsichord renderings don't provide the necessary suavity or seriousness that comes with the character's true profession. While the score does contain its share of propulsive suspension, Williams tends to play the topic with lighter shades by default, even the outright scarier passages not afforded the depth of malice and fright one might expect to hear. When Williams does go for broke on the thriller side of the story, it manifests in purely quirky rhythmic expressions on piano, brass, and light percussion that are impressively tense but also genuinely weird. The duo of "The Car Chase (Fifty Miles of Desert)" and "Hemlock's Bonus," the former unused except in the film's trailer, develop Williams' suspense motif with awkward rambles from the piano and synthetic harpsichord that aren't easily digestible. That suspense motif makes itself known in the middle portions of "Art Masterpieces" and "Friends and Enemies (Film Version)" on harpsichord and utilizes trademark Williams progressions of intrigue. The motif is revisited frequently in the middle third of the score, sustaining through the aforementioned chase and betrayal cues to address hazards on the Eiger in "Falling and Swinging." Williams extends his rhythmic offshoots to the likeable but somewhat silly "Montage - Running With George," an example of the composer's typical one-off cues of motion that really took hold in the 1980's, especially by the time violins carry the motif's tune in fuller emphasis.

Despite these sideshows, however, The Eiger Sanction is dominated by Williams' main theme for Eastwood's assassin. Its use extends from the character's mundane actions to all of his romantic interactions and, eventually, the vista shots of the mountain climbing in both the American Southwest and the Alps. Introduced formally in "Main Title," it diminishes as needed for a somber cue like "To the Dragon" and transitions to the reverence necessary for the scenery in "The First Sunset" and "Sunrise" at the climax. But it's the romantic references that cause the theme to become arguably overused, starting in "Felicity" and continuing to "Love Scene," "Hemlock and Jemima," the end of "Friends and Enemies (Film Version)," "Hotel Bellevue," and "End Title." These cues sometimes stray directly into the territory of the lounge-appropriate source music Williams provided for this film and others previously. Its progressions make it easily recognizable, even when reduced to sparsely tense suggestions as in "Freytag Onto Ice." Most poignantly, Williams allows the theme room to breathe on woodwinds late in "Hanging by a Thread" when an expected betrayal doesn't happen. For those not enthralled by Williams' loungey renderings, then the most appealing performance of the idea will remain "Main Title," which supplies some orchestral beef in the middle of the performance. A variant of the suspense motif alternates with the main melody in that suite as well. On album, the main theme's ubiquity can be something of a detriment, especially on the original presentation from the 1970's. Because of the projected popularity of the subsequent Jaws, Williams was asked to belatedly arrange and record an album version of this score for release on LP record. That presentation is superior in some ways, especially in its stereo recording (as opposed to the mono-derived film version's recording), but it is badly out of chronological order and is heavily reliant upon the many redundant versions of the main theme. If you like flugelhorns, though, Williams provides a decent adaptation of the theme for its tone atop the ensemble. That LP presentation was long released identically on CD until Intrada Records finally provided the film version, source cues, and a few alternate takes along with the remastered album recording on a superb 2021 set. The film version fascinatingly reveals just how much music Eastwood declined to use on screen. That revelation reinforces the notion that Williams' music, while as musically competent as always, didn't always hit the right stylistic marks for the movie, too lighthearted in some parts while restraining the gravity of its action in others.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

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For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.68 (in 91 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.54 (in 363,716 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.