Sony Masterworks is delighted to announce the release of the Original soundtrack to DreamWorks Pictures' War Horse, which is based on a young adult novel by the British author Michael Morpurgo, first published in the United Kingdom in 1982. The soundtrack recording is available on Monday, November 21, 2011.
Director Steven Spielberg's epic adventure is a tale of loyalty, hope and tenacity set against a sweeping canvas of rural England and Europe during the First World War. War Horse begins with the remarkable friendship between a horse named Joey and a young man called Albert, who tames and trains him. When they are forcefully parted, the film follows the extraordinary journey of the horse as he moves through the war, changing and inspiring the lives of all those he meets—British cavalry, German soldiers, and a French farmer and his granddaughter—before the story reaches its emotional climax in the heart of No Man’s Land.
A legend among living movie composers, John Williams has written some of the best-known scores in film history in a career spanning almost six decades. He has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Home Alone and the first three Harry Potter films. He has had a long association with director Steven Spielberg, composing the music for all but two of Spielberg's feature films.
John Williams has won five Academy Awards®, four Golden Globe Awards®, seven BAFTA Awards, and 21 GRAMMY Awards®. With 45 Academy Award® nominations, Williams is, together with composer Alfred Newman, the second most nominated person, after Walt Disney. He is the recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the U.S. government. In 2003, Williams received the Olympic Order, the International Olympic Committee's highest honor, for his contributions to the Olympic movement. And in 2004 he received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor.
"The dramatic countryside of Dartmoor has inspired John Williams to compose a score of such beauty and quiet majesty that one might think the earth was speaking through him, much as the heavens have done for nearly five decades. The music was a stand-alone experience and it affected me deeply, as have so many of John's scores during our nearly 40-year collaboration. I feel that John has made a special gift to me of this music, which was inspired not only by my film but also by many of the picturesque settings of the poet William Wordsworth, whose vivid descriptions of the British landscape inspired much of what you are going to hear." -Steven Spielberg on John Williams' score for War Horse
War Horse is presented by DreamWorks Pictures, directed by Steven Spielberg and originally produced by Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, from a screenplay by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, based on the book by Michael Morpurgo and the recent stage play by Nick Stafford, produced by the National Theatre of Great Britain and directed by Tom Morris and Marianne Elliot. War Horse will be released in theaters on December 25th, 2011.