One of Williams' most brilliant and underrated themes, the music for the mysterious Ark of the Covenant is both attractive in its religious weight and frightening in its ominous, descending structure. Themes of such melodramatic gravity, unforgivingly paced and beautifully oppressive, are a rarity in Williams' career. Only its placement amongst the more famous, comparatively fluffy themes in Raiders of the Lost Ark restrains it from more popular greatness. Williams teases with the primary half of the theme at 0:20 into "Journey to Nepal" (as the Ark is mentioned) before finally unleashing it in one of its two major choral performances in "The Map Room: Dawn." Thereafter, it is a faithful reminder of the coveted artifact in "Reunion and the Dig Begins," mutates into its death march variation in "Ark Trek," and lights up the crowd (literally) with the second monumental choral rendition in "The Miracle of the Ark." Williams even allows it the final chime-banging crescendo of the film, closing out "The Warehouse" in equally ominous but remarkably glorious fashion. There is no doubt that the major performances of this theme in "The Map Room: Dawn" and "The Miracle of the Ark" are the highlights of the score, serving the religious element without any limit in scope. Interestingly, much debate exists about the secondary phrase of the theme for the Ark (and additionally the medallion necessary to help locate its resting place). While some listeners and critics believe that the medallion itself actually has a dedicated theme, it's more likely that the Ark theme, like the title march, simply has a built-in secondary phrase that was coincidentally used in the scene during which Marion first gazes upon the medallion. This makes more sense because while the phrase does appear at the very start of "The Medallion," its most prominent full-ensemble performances exist at 0:40 into "Ark Trek" and explosively at 2:55 into "The Miracle of the Ark." Since the medallion has no role at that point in the film, the music you hear in "The Medallion" is likely representative of some aspect of the Ark itself, whether it's religious, historical, or something else. The theme heard on horn at about 1:00 into "The Medallion" is sometimes confused with being representative of the medallion, but this music is better classified as an extension of the theme for the black-clad Nazi agent Toht, whose mission is to acquire the medallion for himself.

The other themes employed by Williams in Raiders of the Lost Ark aren't quite as obvious, and some contention exists over the composer's intent with a few of those ideas. Unlike the primary three themes, the others tend to be underdeveloped due to the brevity of their on-screen inspirations, and this lack of clarity is often considered one of the score's few weaknesses. The use of secondary phrases within themes has already been discussed in terms of the material for the Ark and medallion. The title theme itself features a secondary phrase that has aged better than the more famous half. Speculation suggests that this phrase represents Jones in motion, but to apply it that specifically is likely going too far. Its first performance is its most attractively elongated in tempo, gracefully accompanying Indy as he panics over a snake in the plane escape from Peru. Two triumphant performances of this phrase exist in "Desert Chase" (at 2:55 and 7:20), and Williams uses it as a bridge to the primary phrase of the title march after the statements of the secondary themes in each of his "End Credits" suites for the franchise. The Nazis, on the other hand, despite claims to the contrary, do have their own distinct theme, though it would not be used by Williams for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It likely fools some listeners because it takes so long for Williams to first state it in full form. Its striking sixteenth notes on high trumpets over rhythmically relentless timpani (first used at 2:05 into "Airplane Fight") are a throwback to Williams' minor theme for the Empire in the first Star Wars film. Translations onto lower brass later in "Airplane Fight" really expose these similarities. The theme receives snare accompaniment at 1:45 and 4:15 in "Desert Chase." These two cues offer Jones in his closest combat with the Nazis, so the application of the most obvious performances of that theme in only these two tracks makes sense. A few hints of the theme exist elsewhere, include one at 1:30 in "The German Sub." An offshoot of the Nazi theme becomes a short announcement of bold, minor-key brass for Agent Toht, and this idea is appropriately alluded to at 1:20 into "Journey to Nepal" before erupting at his entrance at 0:45 into "The Medallion." The theme makes its last contributions in the middle of "Reunion and the Dig Begins." As mentioned before, the faint horn solo after his little fanfare in "The Medallion" likely represents him and not the medallion.

The only other obvious recurring motif in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a sort of "general artifact theme" that Williams uses twice as Indy approaches an answer to a historical conundrum while deep in an underground temple. This rolling bass woodwind and string motif raises anticipation to palpable levels at 2:45 in the cue "In the Idol's Temple" and at 1:00 in "The Map Room: Dawn." The churning of the bassoon early in the performance of this motif during "In the Idol's Temple" is delicious. The remaining thematic ideas that Williams uses throughout Raiders of the Lost Ark are largely singular, ranging from the digging/encampment motif throughout the first half of "The Map Room: Dawn" (which also made a curious appearance in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) to the memorable and spirited motif of comedy in "The Basket Game" (which foreshadowed some of the fluffier material to eventually come from Hook and the Harry Potter scores). Other techniques that Williams uses in Raiders of the Lost Ark, mostly in choice of instrumentation or rhythm, aid the score's superior character. The Jaws-like rhythm on strings during the snake scene in "Flight from Peru" is cute, as is the single chime representing the tolling of a bell upon the arrival to the university setting at the end of that cue. During the map sequences, the gong hit for the arrival in Nepal (an early touch of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) and the slight Arabic progression upon the arrival in Cairo are classy touches. The shooting of the master swordsman in the middle of "The Basket Game" is a classic example of a cue that can tell the story of the scene by itself. As Indy just goes ahead and shoots his fierce opponent (an unscripted change by Ford during filming), Williams unleashes a burst of brass that resembles, quite kiddingly, Jerry Goldsmith's The Wind and the Lion. There is little disagreement that "Desert Chase" is one of the greatest action cues of the Bronze or Digital Ages; Williams' tempo slightly increases as the 8-minute cue progresses, cranking up the intensity as Jones knocks off one Nazi in the convoy after another. The aforementioned dissonant crescendo used for the scene in which the Ark burns a hole through the Nazi crate on the boat is not the same as what was originally recorded by Williams.

In the later cues, the first minute of "The German Sub" offers staggered percussive rhythms and brass that will remind many Williams collectors of the rebel preparation scenes on the snow planet of Hoth at the start of The Empire Strikes Back. The last singular moment of note occurs as the villains melt and explode as they gaze in the Ark. Williams uses struck percussion to accentuate the dissonant strings and aimless brass figures that accompany their deaths, and, after the Ark theme's one final choral expression, Williams allows the its final note to swirl like the wind, fluttering downward to the moment the Ark's lid lands. On the whole, Raiders of the Lost Ark is so full of such remarkable moments that attempting to analyze each one is pointless. The score does have a few weaknesses, however. The development and consistency of the secondary themes is not as tightly organized as it is in other classic Williams scores of the era. Additionally, there are a few cues of a more ambient nature that rely on subtle orchestrations to convey emotions. Normally, this obviously isn't a problem, but in the case of Raiders of the Lost Ark, so much of the score is brazenly obvious and handled by the full ensemble that the quieter moments are easy to dismiss. Foremost in the cues to skip is the lengthy "The Well of the Souls," accompanying the scene in which Indy and Marion are buried alive in the underground room that held the Ark. Turbulent undercurrents, dissonant brass and woodwinds, tingling percussion for the snakes, and the absence of any organized thematic references make the cue largely unremarkable. Also of less interest are "Main Title: South America, 1936" and the first half of "In the Idol's Temple," which, outside of a burst of brass at the end of the first cue, rely on plucked strings and meandering woodwinds to convey the uncertainty and foreign atmosphere of the quest. In the actual chase half of "Flight from Peru," this general idea is heightened to almost comical levels. The shorter concert arrangement of the title theme, entitled "The Raiders March," is largely redundant and, in retrospect, only serves to worsen the fact that the theme is so overplayed (historically) that it has lost some of its initial appeal. Overall, however, such quibbles with Raiders of the Lost Ark are of little consequence. The score remains vastly superior to its sequels, despite each of their individual strengths.

Finding the classic scores of Williams' career from the late 1970's to the early 1980's was a frustrating and often expensive proposition in the early 1990's. Then, in the latter half of the 90's, many of these scores received incredible treatment on expanded CD albums. The first score to be preserved in better form was indeed Raiders of the Lost Ark, which set a trend with its outstanding re-release in 1995. Various labels went on to expand E.T. in 1996, the Star Wars scores in 1997, Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1998, and Superman in 2000, leaving Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as the lone holdout (a disappointment that continued until 2008). A CD adaptation of the original 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark LP record was pressed in 1985 by Polydor, and just as with Return of the Jedi, both the American and West German pressings of that product went out of print and, by the early 1990's, had become moderate collectibles. That 42-minute album offered all the major cues, but its presentation was heavily edited and out of film order. In 1995, however, these albums' values depreciated upon the expanded, 73-minute releases of Raiders of the Lost Ark by DCC in America and Silva in Great Britain. Three separate expanded re-releases came out of that 1995 bonanza, including both a regular CD (with a white cover), a limited pressing (with a useless, gold slip cover), and, most interestingly, a high quality double-LP version with a white cover and gold border. All of these 1995 products offered at least 30 additional minutes over lengthened tracks and eight major, previously unreleased cues. The 1995 vinyl release was the gem, however, because it features five additional minutes of material in "The Well of the Souls" not available on the CDs (including a notably frenzied performance of the Ark theme near the end). While stretching a CD to 79:20 in length was prohibitive, certainly at least some of that material could have been edited onto the CD pressings. It's a small annoyance, but then again, how many expanded scores of this era were only pressed on vinyl? Both CDs contain the same music (if you hustled to the stores immediately in November of 1995, you got the gold slip cover version), remastered into superior sound and featuring an impressive 24-page booklet with track-by-track analysis and interviews.

Much anticipation resulted from the announcement in 2008 that Concord Records, the group responsible for the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, had decided to compile a set of all four scores in the franchise and include significant portions of additional, previously unreleased material from the first three scores. There were reports that Raiders of the Lost Ark would be released separately from the set, which would have been beneficial for those not interested in either the sequel scores or potentially doubling up on the commercial release of the fourth score. With that individual album scrapped at the last minute, those interesting in hearing even more unreleased music from Raiders of the Lost Ark only had the option of purchasing the $45 set with a redundant album for the fourth film. The set advertises remastered sound, though the 1995 product's presentation was already vastly improved. Some cues in the 2008 set version seem to feature slightly more reverberation, though this is debatable. Of all four scores in the franchise, Raiders of the Lost Ark needed the least assistance in achieving complete status on album, and the fact that Concord failed to provide the totality of material from this one score is disappointing. It left the door open for another product in the future to clean up the mess and collect more money from fans. Most of the additional music from "The Well of the Souls" on the 1995 LP is provided in the form of "Uncovering the Ark" on the supplemental, fifth CD of additional music in the set (along with the concert version of "Raiders March"). Of the three additional cues included on the actual first CD of that set, all are about a minute in length and only "Washington Men," with its eerie, choral introduction of the Ark theme, is worth the trouble. Unfortunately, the "Desert Chase" cue has been unnecessarily trimmed down to its 1985 album length, and a couple of other minutes of odds and ends from the score remain unreleased. Unfortunately, the 2008 set simply forces fans once again to make their own compilation of material from the score. Only the primary CD of that presentation was re-issued by Disney in 2024 as part of a useless and expensive franchise set. The 2008 and 2024 albums are also very short on analysis about the score in their otherwise bloated packaging. Still, on the whole, there's no reason not to have either of the 1995 or 2008 albums in your collection. The only better sensation would be to find the Ark of the Covenant buried in your back yard. Well, maybe.  *****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download