The Legacy of John Williams

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Table of Contents

• Film Details
• Music Credits
• Essential Discography
• Awards and Nominations
• In Williams’ Words
• Quotes and Commentary
• Videos
• Bibliography and References

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Film Details

Year: 1993
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Steven Spielberg
Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Gerald R. Molen
Writers: Michael Crichton, David Koepp (based on the novel by Michael Crichton)
Main Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, B.D. Wong, Samuel L. Jackson, Wayne Knight, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards
Genre: Action – Adventure – Science-Fiction

For synopsis and the full cast and crew credits, visit the IMDb page

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Music Credits

Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams

Music Editor: Kenneth Wannberg
Recording Engineer / Scoring Mixer: Shawn Murphy
Assistant Engineer: Sue McLean
Orchestra Contractor: Sandy DeCrescent
Vocal Contractor: Jeannine Wagner
Orchestrators: John Neufeld, Alexander Courage
Additional Conductor: Artie Kane
Music Preparation: JoAnn Kane Music Service
Recording Studio: Sony Pictures Scoring Stage, Culver City, California
Recording Dates: March 30, 31, April 1, 2, 5, 7 and 14, 1993

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Essential Discography

Orginal Soundtrack Album and Expanded Reissues

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Selected Re-recordings

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Awards and Nominations

Grammy Awards
Nomination: Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television

Saturn Awards
Nomination: Best Music

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In Williams’ Words

“I’ve just finished with it, and I hope everyone’s going to like it. You get caught up in the moment of creativity, with the chauvinistic spirit of everyone working on the film, but you can never really know what the public’s going to do. Still, when I saw Home Alone I thought there would be a huge public for that film, and there was, and it didn’t take a genius to know it. I can’t believe that Jurassic Park won’t be a great success. The computer graphics of the dinosaurs are so beautiful — never in your life have you seen what you’re about to see. These creatures are so enormous, the texture and lighting of their skin, their movements, the integration with the live action — it is a staggering achievement. And to know that they aren’t models but numbers in a computer blows my mind, which is a pre-computer mind!
On the CD, you can hear all kinds of wild orchestral and choral things, the raptor attacks and chases and things; the idea was to shake the floor and scare everybody. […] The music that accompanies the first appearance of these benign creatures, some gentle religioso cantilena lines, music that tries to capture the awesome beauty and sublimity of the dinosaurs in nature […] is very sonorous, tonal, straightfoward, string oriented. There’s also a kind of adventure theme, high-spirited and brassy, that accompanies the flight to the island where the experiment takes place; it’s very thrilling and upbeat musically, very positive.”¹

“Jurassic Park has a 75-minute score. It pumps away all the time. It’s a rugged, noisy effort – a massive job of symphonic cartooning. You have to match the rhythmic gyrations of the dinosaurs and create these kind of funny ballets. I remember particularly the kitchen scene, which is one of the most terrifying scenes I think I’ve ever seen in a film. lt’s scored in a very dramatic way, and the gestures being operatic made it a little larger than life. lt was an opportunity for me to push the orchestral buttons to the limit. That’s part of the great fun for me – the swashbuckling aspect of what one can do with an orchestra with these kind of movies.”²

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Quotes and Commentary

Sixty-five million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the earth. Now, through the miracle of DNA cloning and John Williams’ talent, we’re back in the Jurassic Era, listening to a score which I can only call classic, vintage Williams.
John and I haven’t made a movie like this together since Jaws, and it was a lot of fun for us to revisit a genre that we got such a kick out of 18 years ago.
When listening to this score, you should pay particular attention to the music of the raptors – as well as the haunting and ennobling sounds of the brachiosaurus – in my opinion some of the most original writing John has ever done for the movies.
Jurassic Park marks the end of our first dozen films together. It’s the longest personal working relationship I’ve ever had with anyone in the motion picture industry, and I consider it a privilege to call John my friend.³
– Steven Spielberg

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Williams’s score features two major themes. The first is a noble melody associated with the herbivorous dinosaurs.
*I wanted to create a sense of the awe you’d feel seeing those magnificent creatures. Williams says. “There’s almost a religious aspect to their music.” The theme is constructed of repeating phrases (or perhaps “cloned” would be the better word) and introduced reverently in the latter part of the track “Journey to the Island,” when the first animals are revealed.
The moment seems to instinctively tap into children’s fascination with dinosaurs, imbuing the score with uplift and exaltation that offsets the horror and danger to come. Midway through the picture it is presented in lullaby form in “A Tree for My Bed,” but otherwise it is reserved for the finale and end credits suite “Welcome to Jurassic Park.” Earlier in “Journey to the Island” Williams introduces Jurassic Park‘s second major theme, a bold island adventure motif that is confident yet slightly meandering and unpredictable, reminding the listener that man might lose control of its creation at any moment. While played fully as part of “Welcome to Jurassic Park,” its versatility allows it to be rendered delicately (“The History Lesson”), tentatively (“To the Maintenance Shed”) or joyously (“T-Rex Rescue and Finale”).
The theme that is utilized most in Jurassic Park is the four-note motif for the carnivores (it is used for both the T. rex and the velociraptors), which is actually, upon close analysis, a chromatically skewed segment of the main dinosaur theme. It is introduced in “The T-Rex Chase” and dominates the latter part of the score in “To the Maintenance Shed,” “High Wire Stunts,” “The Raptors Attack,” and “T-Rex Rescue and Finale.”⁴
– Mike Matessino

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Videos

John Williams conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in “Theme from Jurassic Park” at the Musikverein
from John Williams in Vienna (2020)

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Steven Spielberg and John Williams discuss Jurassic Park at an event at the American Cinematheque (January 2023)

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Why Jurassic Park’s Music is So Powerful
Video essay by Barnaby Martin

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Bibliography and References

. Dyer, Richard – “The Williams Whirlwind – Dinosaurs, Sinatra Highlight His Busy Last Year at the Pops,” The Boston Globe, May 9, 1993
. Hammond, Pete – “Steven Spielberg & John Williams Talk 50 Years Of Music And Movies From ‘Sugarland Express’ To ‘Fabelmans’ – Exclusive Video,” Deadline.com, February 16 2023
. Lehman, Frank – “Hollywood Cadences: Music and the Structure of Cinematic Expectation,” Music Theory Online, December 2013
. Matessino, Mike – “Evolution and Revolution,” Jurassic Park – Remastered and Expanded Original Soundtrack liner notes, La-La Land Records, 2022
. Merluzeau, Yann – “An Interview with John Williams,” Soundtrack!, September 1993
. Thomas, David – “Point Blank: John Williams,” Total Film, September 1997

Legacy of John Williams Additional References

. Podcast with Mike Matessino on Jurassic Park, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind

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Footnotes

1. Quote from “The Williams Whirlwind – Dinosaurs, Sinatra Highlight His Busy Last Year at the Pops,” The Boston Globe, 1993 ↩︎
2. Quote from “Point Blank: John Williams,” Total Film, 1997 ↩︎
3. Jurassic Park – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack liner notes, MCA Records, 1993 ↩︎
4. Matessino, excerpt from Jurassic Park – Remastered and Expanded Original Soundtrack liner notes, La-La Land Records, 2022 ↩︎

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