It is heartening to see John Williams, the dean of film composers, recognized in his old age by invitations to lead the grand European orchestras, first the Vienna Philharmonic and then, here, the Berlin Philharmonic, in a concert recorded in October of 2021, just a few months in advance of Williams' 90th birthday. Williams fans will probably want both albums, for the contents do not overlap much. This is possible because he has written such an abundance of great music, and any hearer of these albums cannot help but reflect on how deeply his music is woven into the contemporary cinematic consciousness. One will also notice how much Williams owes to the grand tradition of Austrian-American film music, growing out of Wagner and Strauss. The Berlin Philharmonic does not have to master the tricky acquisition of American vernacular idioms, for Williams rarely uses these. When he departs from his central language, as in the score to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it is in a modernist direction. One center of his music is the march, which is present in many pieces that are not explicitly designated as marches, and it is here that The Berlin Concert takes Williams to a new level. Are there American brass sections that could add the same level of snap to the Olympic Fanfare and Theme (written for the 1984 Olympic Games) or the "Raiders March" (from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark)? Possibly a few. Would they necessarily be available for a high-profile survey of Williams' work like this one? Probably not. The album has been billed as a meeting between the greatest film composed in the world and the greatest orchestra in the world. Certainly, neither characterization is far off, and the combination results in a very special release indeed. ~ James Manheim