One wonders what people will say about John Williams in the year 2050. The man just keeps producing scores that, if it were possible, surpass the prior one in elegance, emotional weight, and sheer, gorgeous, spellbinding beauty.
Gushing?
I don’t think so. Listen to this soundtrack before you conclude that this reviewer has gone out-of-his-mind starry.
Williams embellishes a great movie with a superlative soundtrack that is memorable not for its fireworks but for its muscular, toned way of holding back. In producing this kind of restrained aural backdrop for Private Ryan the composer makes his contribution to the magnificent dignifying of the American soldiers’ sacrifice in WWII that raises the film above the genre of war flicks to a level where it partakes of something greater than clever description.
Listen to the trumpets. Luxuriate in the never completely absent tympanic presence. Marvel at how time and again the double basses cut through incipient lethargy with an edge that is uncommon for this instrument. Hear the snare, Williams’ one token of martial thematics, over and over again, reminding us that this is war as much as it is music.
Leave room for tears. Williams’ score elevates the souls but will not allow one to forgo the tears. Just listen. Weep if you must. It is music for that.
Canter Bridge 
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