Theme (Schindler's List)

Williams saw Schindler's List before scoring it in 1993 and told Spielberg the film deserved a better composer. He built the score around a single violin line, recorded by Itzhak Perlman, whose playing draws on the inflections of klezmer without quoting it. Much of the film runs with no music at all; the theme returns at intervals as a private voice set against documentary images. The score brought Williams his fifth Academy Award. Played on its own, the theme keeps the restraint of the film — no climax, no resolution, a melody that stops rather than ends.