Review: The New York Pops Celebrate 100 YEARS OF EPIC FILM SCORES at Carnegie Hall

On Friday March 14, 2025, the New York Pops closed out their 2024-25 season at Carnegie Hall with 100 Years of Epic Film Scores. Music Director and conductor Steven Reineke said he felt like the show was the perfect way to end the season, showcasing the wonderful Pops orchestra. Stripped of the distraction of their normal guest vocalists, I had a newfound appreciation for Reineke’s masterful work conducting, and the magnificent Pops orchestra itself. Reineke conceived of this concert as a kind of broad history of film scores, featuring at least one piece from each decade of the past 100 with a focus on notable pieces or those with historic significance. Listening to the Pops, the entire audience at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage were transported across time, place and film.

They kicked off the evening with the instrumentals of “Hooray for Hollywood” by Richard A. Whiting and Johnny Mercer (1937), a paean to the golden age of cinema. From there, we moved into the overture from Nosferatu, written for the 1922 film. Reineke informed us that this was the first piece specifically written for a silent movie. He reconstructed the chilling, haunting piece from a partially surviving draft by composer Hans Erdmann; that evening was the first time the new adaptation had ever been played for an audience. It opened with just the strings section, slowly building up until the entire orchestra was engaged. We moved through various other sweeping, epic and magnificent selections from film scores: a suite from Erick Korngold’s The Sea Hawk (1940), “Parade of The Charioteers” from Miklós Rózsa’s score for Ben-Hur (1959). Reineke’s music direction made excellent use of the percussion, building tension with dramatic flourishes.

I happen to have not seen most of the movies selected for this evening, but Reineke chose some iconic pieces, proving that composers built an auditory language for film just as cinematographers have built a visual one. We don’t often think about this, but the concert shone a focus on it with selections from oft-referenced works like Psycho (1960) and The Magnificent Seven (1960). The pieces immediately called up images of horror and Western movies, respectively, even though I haven’t seen either of the original films. It was thrilling to see the suite from Psycho in particular played live on a grand scale. Reineke explained before that composer Bernard Herrmann had chosen to use only strings to get a grand feel with a limited budget, and seeing the orchestra play it gave an immediacy to that fact. Seeing the different techniques Herrmann used to produce a variety of chilling sounds from stringed instruments – plucking, a violent sawing of the bow, and so on – was fascinating.

The selection struck a balance between the truly iconic and broadly known – the James Bond theme (1962), the theme from the Godfather (1972) and Jurassic Park (1993) to some lesser-known pieces that Reineke just loved. Reineke also made sure to include a sensitive and lovely selection from Emma, the first time a female composer won the Academy Award for best score (Rachel Portman). If his goal was getting the audience to have a newfound appreciation for movie scores, he succeeded. My friend even commented that she vaguely recognized the suite from Spiderman: Far from Home (2019) but hadn’t been able to hear it or focus on it very well over the movie’s sound mixing between the dialogue and fight scenes it was likely played under. Hearing the Pops orchestra do it, she realized for the first time what a beautiful and complex melody it had. (That score was written by Michael Giacchino, an up-and-coming film composer who Reineke hinted may be coming to a future Pops show at some point down the line.)

The Pops closed out the night with an encore, playing a selection from John Williams’ score for Star Wars (I believe “Darth Vader's Theme”). The crowd was enraptured by the grand scale playing of the iconic piece, the perfect bowtie on a transfixing concert.

The New York Pops make a special effort to make their concerts accessible to all, focusing on popular music and engaging children with their PopsEd programs including Kids in the Balcony, where they invite kids in NYC public schools to attend their concerts, and Kids on Stage, where they learn how to play in an orchestra themselves.

They’ll continue with their 42nd birthday gala on April 28, 2025, honoring songwriter Diane Warren with star-studded guest artists. Click here for tickets to that and information on their 2025-2026 season, which begins on October 24 with From Stage to Screen featuring guests Hugh Panaro and Elizabeth Stanley.

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Learn more about the New York Pops' upcoming shows and programs on their website at newyorkpops.org

Find more upcoming shows at Carnegie Hall online on their website at www.carnegiehall.org

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