How John Williams came to the unlikely rescue of the ‘Home Alone’ score

The “Home Alone” score wasn’t wrapped up with a red bow and bearing a card with John Williams’ name inscribed upon it. The assignment was originally intended for Bruce Boughton, known for his Oscar-nominated score for ”Silverado" (1985).

Early “Home Alone” posters and a trailer carried Boughton’s name. However, he had to drop out when the schedule conflicted with another project, Disney’s animated film “The Rescuers Down Under” (1990).

In the just published biography, John Williams: A Composer’s Life (Oxford), author Tim Greiving recounts how Williams came to the film’s rescue instead. Director Chris Columbus heard that Williams wanted to see a rough cut of “Home Alone” (1990). After that preview, Williams sent word to Columbus that he wanted to score it. “We were just completely overwhelmed,” Columbus said. “Here was a small, $18 million movie that [he] and his producers were simply hoping would double its budget [at the box office].”

Columbus suspects that Williams was attracted by Columbus’ temp score featuring Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Dave Grusin’s score for “Murder by Death” and Mannheim Steamroller’s take on “Carol of the Bells.” “I think he probably saw the potential in that movie that even I didn’t see,” said Columbus, “because I was too close to it.”

Williams was “simply enchanted” by “Home Alone,” which Members of the CSO will perform live to picture, conducted by Nicholas Buc, in three concerts Dec. 12-14. Williams also saw it as a chance for himself to write some original Christmas carols, in the manner of his late friend Alfred Burt, such as his “Caroling, Caroling” (1954) and “The Star Carol” (1954).

“Where else would I get such an opportunity?” Williams asked Columbus. Williams also suggested that his old friend Mel Torme record a version of Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine’s “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (introduced in the 1944 film “Meet Me in St. Louis”) for the soundtrack.

“For John to be able to connect what I did in that movie not only propels the story forward but from a narrative standpoint, it’s like he’s taking the audience’s hand and inviting them inside that world. It becomes immersive,“ Columbus said. ”That’s what John’s music does. Certain film scores almost keep the audience at bay, but John manages to immerse the audience in the warmth, or the terror, of the film.”

Columbus believes that Williams’ crucial contribution was blending the film’s contrasting tones of slapstick comedy with its Christmasy heart. “John just created this linear glue that held those two tones together,” Columbus said, “which is brilliant.” Williams had not scored a straight-up comedy since “1941” (1979), and he suddenly remembered how exhausting the genre could be, where every millisecond matters in “these wonderfully burlesque comedy sequences that the orchestra accompanies so completely in the film.”

Williams had recorded The Nutcracker Suite with the Boston Pops back in 1984, and he liberally borrowed Tchaikovsky’s yuletide spirit for “Home Alone.”  The score opens with an homage to “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy,” setting an enchanted mood with bells and twinkling Christmas lights, in a melody ifilled with the feeling of nostalgia and boyhood. This main tune became the carol “Somewhere in My Memory,” with words by Leslie Bricusse (known for the films “Doctor Dolittle” and “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”)

The melody that formed the score’s other carol, “Star of Bethlehem,” evokes the sense of danger threatening Kevin. Williams wrote a perky boy’s adventure theme, usually performed by tuba. For the self-proclaimed “Wet Bandits,” John conceived a wily villain motif worthy of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.

The film ends with a last reprise of “Memory,” played on a synth harpsichord, joined by the whole orchestra. "For all of its Christmas wish fulfillment, the real reason multiple generations developed a powerful bond to ’Home Alone’ is because of John’s sparkling, heartstring music."