Review: "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at Blossom with The Cleveland Orchestra

ClevelandClassical has published a review of Brett Mitchell's recent performance of Raiders of the Lost Ark at Blossom Music Center:

Associate conductor Brett Mitchell led The Cleveland Orchestra in John Williams’s Oscar-nominated score.... The precision of the coordination was remarkable, leading to the somewhat ironic conclusion that The Cleveland Orchestra—at full force on Saturday—did not intrude in a splendid screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark....

The score is symphonic in scope, underscoring most of the film, except for a few extended passages of dialogue. Williams is a genius who can completely change character with one or two chords as the film cuts from one scene to the next. Themes for the characters and situations are developed with Wagnerian clarity, and the orchestral writing is virtuosic throughout. And unlike the original recording by the London Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra played the entire score non-stop. It likely contained more music—if perhaps less profound—than a Mahler or Bruckner symphony, and Brett Mitchell kept the whole thing moving.

To read the complete review, please click here.