Soundtrack Magazine
by Randall Larson

Alan Williams' sensitive scoring for these spectacular IMAX films is quite remarkable. Both of these disks, one a commercial release, the other one of several promos produced for Williams' agency, demonstrate their composer's handling of broad orchestral ideas with a sense of intimacy, poignancy, and rare eloquence. AMAZON opens with rich, deep, exotic jungle drums, native flutes, and massive choir, immediately drawing the listener into the powerful rhythmic sound. The motif immediately evokes visions of primitive yet powerful life, while a violin melody soaring quickly amid rivers of sonic texture suggests the virility of the life-giving river. This tonality - a sweeping, romantic melodic structure from strings blended with the primitive flutes and percussion that conveys the musical imagery of South America - will continue throughout most of the cues, in one form or another. It becomes the thread that links various diverse cues for Bolivian villages, underwater sequences, animal montages, Indian men and women, the Amazon rain forest.

"Mamani" is a quiet soliloquy for woodwind over strings and percussion, drawn from the melody of the main theme but subdued into a poignant melody. Quiet voices lend it an emotional tonality while pan flutes maintain a sense of place. The music opens into a rich, lyrically beautiful rendition of the main theme, robust and eloquent. "Underwater" unfolds into a magnificently exhilarating, if short, rendering of the swelling melody. Use of choir in "The River" carries almost a mystical sense of timelessness as Williams exudes the sense of age and glory represented by the mighty Amazon. "Flight" recapitulates the forward motion of the opening motif with massive drums, huge statements from horns, and the gentle trilling of the flutes underneath it all. A very powerful and driving motif. "Zoe" adds a quickly chanted choral motif on top of the drums and flutes to evoke a very powerful musical statement.

Documentary music is difficult because there is no true drama upon which to hang musical themes, and there are no recurring characters around whom motives can be built and interlaced and developed. Appropriately, Alan Williams takes the Amazon as his character and creates of it a huge canvas for his broadly textured composition. His single theme - that mighty melody for the river and all the life it supports - reunites frequently with his jungle textures and ethnic music to encapsulate the composition, embellished and given a potent edge by use of chorus. Just as the river sustains the life of the region, so does the river's theme sustain the cohesion of the score.