John Williams - The Ultimate Guitar Collection (2004)

During his career John Williams has not only explored the basic classical literature for guitar, he has also expanded it by inspiring, commissioning and arranging music from different cultures and in different styles, thereby transform the instrument's repertoire. To celebrate this outstanding and ongoing recording career Sony Classical has released a 2 CD retrospective entitled John Williams: The Ultimate Guitar Collection. This thiry-nine track compilation includes key tracks from all John's recent releases including last year's El Diablo Suelto, a celebration of Venezualan guitar music, and 2001's Magic Box on which John joined forces with fellow musicians John Etheridge, Chris Laurence, Paul Clarvis and Richard Harvey to explore the continuing tradition of guitar music in Africa and Madagascar and 1997's The Black Decameron on which John performed music by the comtemporary Cuban composer Leo Brouwer.

The Magic Box album also includes guest appearances by Francis Bebey and the African Children's Choir. Designed very much as a gateway into John's substantial recorded catalogue the new album inlcudes many of the great standards of the classical guitar repertoire including Alb?niz' Asturias, Stanley Meyer's Cavatina from the film Deerhunter and the ever popular second movement from Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranuez. More populist fare includes transcriptions for guitar and orchestra of the theme tunes from Schindler's List and The Godfather, by namesake John Williams and Nino Rota respectively, both taken from the …Plays the Movies album released in 1997, the traditional tune El Condor Pasa and the anonymous Romance for Guitar and Orchestra. John is also represented as a composer on the new collection with the Aeolian Chant from The Guitarist.

This double-disc compilation of John Williams' guitar favorites must appear, even to the uninitiated, as a commercial attempt by Sony to milk his catalog to the last possible sale. Without denigrating the guitarist's consummate skills or his usually satisfying achievements, his recordings for Columbia and Sony are repeatedly recycled in different packaging every few years, and likely will be reissued many more times. The Ultimate Guitar Collection could be changed to "penultimate," but even that is too definite a prediction of when this process will stop. That said, the album contains virtually every greatest hit that matters to guitar lovers, and is more than representative of Williams' wide-ranging work, from Baroque to Spanish classics and beyond. The selections are taken from his early, undated sessions for the LP, Echoes of London, and many other dated albums, from 1975's The Four Lute Suites of Johann Sebastian Bach, on through 2003's El Diablo Suelto. Most of the music is relaxing and pleasant, though some of the film themes from John Williams Plays the Movies disrupt the flow of fine solo playing, and are jarring for their bombastic orchestration and emotional insipidity. The sound quality varies substantially between the analog and digital recordings, and is sometimes too loud, even at a middle volume setting.

Tracklist
Disc: 1
1 Suite Española, Op. 47 Instrumental : No. 5 Asturias (Leyenda)
2 Cavatina from the Deer Hunter Instrumental
3 I. Prelude from Suite for Lute (Guitar) No. 4 in E Major, BWV 1006A: Excerpt
4 Triangular Situations
5 Recuerdos de la Alhambra
6 Romance for Guitar and String Orchestra Previously Unreleased
7 Dance from "La Vida Breve" Instrumental
8 Sonata in E Major, K. 380 (L. 23) Instrumental
9 Como Llora Una Estrella
10 The Mission (Gabriel's Oboe, Mission Theme, on Earth As It Is in Heaven) Voice
11 El Colibri Instrumental
12 Gymnopédie No. 3 (For Guitar and Small Orchestra) Instrumental
13 Courante Instrumental
14 La Catedral
15 El Condor Pasa - Traditional Peruvian Folksong Solo Guitar & Previously Unreleased
16 Salut D'amor Instrumental
17 Malinke Guitars
18 Concerto for Lute (Guitar), Two Violins (Strings) and Basso Continuo in D Major, R. 93 Instrumental : I. Allegro Giusto
19 The Entertainer from the Sting Instrumental

Disc: 2
1 Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra : II. Adagio
2 El Diablo Suelto
3 Preludio en Do Menor 213
4 No. 3 Sevilla (Sevillanas) from Suite Española, Op. 47
5 Gnossienne No. 1 Instrumental
6 Cueca
7 Schindler's List Instrumental
8 Lute Suite No. 4 in E Major, BWV 1006A Instrumental : III. Gavotte en Rondeau
9 Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika
10 Pavane for Guitar and String Orchestra Instrumental
11 Trio for Violin, Lute (Guitar) and Basso Continuo in C Major, R. 82 Instrumental : III. Allegro
12 Sunburst Instrumental
13 The Godfather (Love Theme, Godfather Waltz) Instrumental
14 Scherzino Mexicano Instrumental
15 Aeolian Suite for Guitar and Small Orchestra Instrumental : I. Aeolian Chant
16 Three Blues for Classic Guitar Instrumental : Spanish Guitar Blues/Blues for Felix/Swing 59
17 El Decaméron Negro Instrumental : II. La Huida de los Amantes Por El Valle de los Ecos
18 Una Limosna Por El Amor de Dios (La Ultima Canción)
19 Saltarello Instrumental
20 Tórre Bermeja