The most eagerly anticipated movie of 1999, if not the decade, The Phantom Menace was also a mouth-watering prospect for soundtrack fans. Star Wars, after all, has become arguably the best-known and most influential movie score ever written, so a new instalment from John Williams, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was always going to be a cause for celebration. And if the movie proved ultimately unable to live up to audience's almost impossibly high expectations, the music more than compensated. This is Williams at his expansive best. Always a supremely confident inhabitant of the Star Wars universe, the composer once again marshals the techniques of leitmotif and thematic transformation to depict the exotic landscapes of George Lucas's imagination; and here, 22 years after the original, his scoring exudes the maturity of a highly accomplished master of his craft. Take the centrally important "Anakin's Theme", for example, in which the seeds are sown for transformation into "The Imperial March" (Darth Vader's theme), or the Miklós Rózsa-esque march of "The Flag Parade" (the comparison with Ben-Hur is only fitting in context), or the magnificent choral set-piece, "Duel Of The Fates", in which a choir chanting a Sanskrit text (!) is propelled headlong over a driving ostinato rhythm. Original themes are used sparingly, but when the Force theme floats ethereally into "Watto's Deal" or the Emperor's sinister theme introduces "The Appearance Of Darth Maul", their impact is all the more telling for its subtlety. Throughout, the picturesque orchestration conjures vivid images--whether or not you are thinking of the movie--helped greatly by a magnificent performance from the LSO, whose excitement and sense of enjoyment in this music is tangible (the brass playing is, as ever with this team, a joy to behold). The recording at Abbey Road Studio No. 1 is also one of the most realistic ever captured on disc: listen through good speakers and it's like sitting in the studio itself. This 74-minute album assembled by the composer is intended to offer a musically coherent presentation: doubtless a complete version of this score will surface to satisfy collectors, but for now there's scarcely a better way to experience the magical fusion of music and cinema. --Mark Walker