John Williams skillfully utilizes the formidable talents of renowned cellist
Yo-Yo Ma and equally beloved violinist
Itzhak Perlman to flesh out director
Rob Marshall's celluloid rendering of the bestselling novel by Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha. Elegant and predictable,
Williams sticks to the source, building grand Western themes off of traditional Japanese melodies with a heady mix of regional instrumentation (shakuhachi and koto) and cinematic know-how. This is the composer at his most refined and nuanced, providing a textbook example of professional composition that revels in its subject matter without ever intruding. ~ James Christopher Monger