Favorite theme? Impossible to choose. 'The Imperial March' is the reason I bought my first film music CD, which, in turn, started my love for film music. So that's a sentimental favorite.
But right now, I'll say 'Hymn to The Fallen'. As good as music inspired by film gets. It is so friggin'.....wow.
Favorite score? also changes, but currently it is HOOK. The richest film score I've ever heard. 2+ hours of pure orchestral story-telling on a scale I've never heard before or since. Probably more themes and motif than just about any other movie ever, and each and every one of those theme (at least a dozen) is strong enough to hold a motion picture on it's own. The music is as...well, add any positive superlative you want here. My favorite pirate music ever- 'Presenting the Hook' is music I remembered and loved ever since I saw the film for the first times, a decade before I became a film music enthusiast. And 'The Face of Pan' is as stunning an example of film scoring as any (together with 'The Cadilac of The Skies' from EMPIRE OF THE SUN). (I tend to get kind of gushy when it comes to HOOK.....)
Favorite moment? Also impossible to choose. But since I'm in a HOOK kind of place, it's as good a place as any to choose from. On the album, it'd be the opening seconds fo the album, the 'Prologue'. The whole track is among the best things Williams has ever written, but the opening in particular, the entrance to a magical world. This may sound kind of simple, but sooooooo many composers have tried to capture that feel. Over here, Williams promised me a once in a life time musical experience, and boy, did he deliver.
Oh, and that chattering motif from RETURN OF THE JEDI (at the end of 'Obi Wan's Revelation') is also a thrilling, unexpeced little motif that is so utterly perfect, in a particulaly Williams kind of way.
Another one that comes to mind is just a recent example- from HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN. That woodwind run at the end of 'The Secrets of The Castle', more than anything, confirmed that Williams was just as brilliant as ever. Just a tiny magical touch on a tiny little scene, but it just exudes so much...I just love the mischievous sense present in this score (crystalized by the 'Double Trouble' theme, of course). Film music that is as alive and vivacious as it comes.
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