Review by Andrew Poretz

The New York Pops, after a diverse season of excellent programming and concerts, had its season finale on March 14 at Carnegie Hall with 100 Years of Film Scores. Unlike most of its programs, with guest performers like Norm Lewis and Tony DeSare, Maestro Steven Reineke chose to shine the spotlight on its own roster of top orchestral musicians. (Reineke had the orchestra stand for bows after every piece.)

The program covered roughly a century of film scores, ranging from music meant to be played live at silent-film screenings, to new, or at least newish, scores. Reineke’s choice of material included some of the most familiar movie music, and also some that only the biggest film (or soundtrack) buffs might recognize.

The concert commenced with the opening of the legendary 20th Century Fox theme before transitioning into “Hooray for Hollywood” (Richard A. Whiting/Johnny Mercer) from Hollywood Hotel.

The evening had its first major highlight when the charismatic Reineke introduced his fleshed-out adaptation of a small piece of the long-lost score of the 1922 silent vampire film Nosferatu, of which there are no recordings. This music, which produced palpable feelings of fear and tension, was thrilling to hear a century after its last appearance.

The first feature-length “talkie” with a score specifically written for the film was King Kong, written Max Steiner. “Theme from King Kong” began with a tranquility that evolved to an increasingly insistent piece of drama. That the King Kong storyline is so well known created, in effect, a movie of the mind, at least for this reviewer. The Pops rendition was perfection.

Reineke chose “Parade of the Charioteers” (Miklós Rózsa) to represent Ben-Hur, the longest film score ever written (three and a half hours) until Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The piece evoked chariots, pomp and circumstance, and centurions in preparation for the film’s brutal chariot race.

The evening’s biggest triumph came with the Psycho (Bernard Herrman) segment of the concert. The program named it “Prelude,” “The Murder” and “Finale” from the Psycho Suite, but the whole shebang is best described as the “shower sequence.” Interestingly, Reineke stated, the decision to use only strings, while financially motivated, worked well with the film’s monochromatic black and white.  Though Hitchcock adamantly wanted no music for the shower scene, Herrman prevailed with the use of dissonant bursts of strings to represent the knife attack. The score has an incredible amount of tension, with a growing sense of dread in the second movement. The staccato violins created an effect so visceral that this reviewer nearly had to look away, as one might while watching Psycho.

The last selections of the first half are among the most famous movie themes of all time. Elmer Bernstein’s “Theme from The Magnificent Seven”is especially familiar (to those of a certain age) from 1960s commercials that licensed its most familiar section for Marlboro cigarettes. Nino Rota’s “Love Theme” from The Godfather (complete with the ominous, lone trumpet opening) took the listener right back into the movie.

Reineke went “back in time” to end the first half with a fabulous rendition of the James Bond theme from Dr. No (Monty Norman and John Barry), complete with electric guitar.

The first half of the concert, played in chronological order, arguably had the greatest of the most classic scores. The selections after the intermission, while beautiful and spectacular to hear played live by a 78-piece orchestra, were largely from popcorn films like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and Spiderman: Far From Home. Still, there were plenty of gems, particularly Gladiator (Hans Zimmer), with the percussionist’s tom-toms and snare evoking a sense of battle. The orchestration further evoked mid-battle recovery, with wounded soldiers everywhere, a march to the end of the battlefield, and an epic, victorious finish.

Following the Spiderman: Far From Home (Michael Giacchino) finale, a well-deserved standing ovation prompted Reineke to return for an unbilled encore of the “Imperial March” (Darth Vader’s theme) from Star Wars.

The New York Pops: 100 Years of Film Scores played on March 14 at Carnegie Hall, 154 West 57th Street at Seventh Avenue (www.carnegiehall.org).

Photos: Genevieve Rafter Keddy