Being lucky enough to live in England, I was able to get Willow fairly easily and at a only mid price. As the James Horner score that every seems to want to get, apart from Cocoon, I was actually a little disappointed at first, some of the cues seemed a little over long and contained some boring parts which you have to listen through in order to get to the good parts. This especially true of Bavmorda's Spell is Cast which at some eighteen minutes long is just too long and you have to wait for nine minutes before any interesting music comes along, a bit of pruning here and there is required I think. However, the are some truly exceptional tracks, the best by far is The Escape from the Tavern which combines the best of James Horner action music with the best James Horner theme. That neatly brings me onto Willow's theme, it really is one of my favourite themes from James Horner, I realise that it is derived from a theme from a Schumann symphony, but the way Horner overlays his elements means that is just superb. The soft and gentle parts are some of Horner's most beautiful (with the possible exception of Casper) and are a welcome rest from the frenetic action and the very loud parts. The playing is superb, The London Symphony Orchestra again and so although the music isn't perfect, the excellent parts outweigh the dull parts.
Rating ~ 