Williams is revered as the composer par excellence for some of Hollywood's most popular film scores. This has somewhat overshadowed another facet of his career that is no less significant: John Williams as a concert conductor. As conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, he legitimized the film music repertoire in the concert hall. In addition, he commissioned new orchestral arrangements of popular classics, wrote his own music, and expanded the orchestra's core classical repertoire.

His legacy with the Boston Pops is brought together in an outstanding way in this box set, which brings together the albums he recorded for Philips during his first decade at the helm of the orchestra. The set is rounded off by a wonderful project with the unforgettable Jessye Norman: Williams returns to his roots as a pianist and accompanies Norman on songs by Leonard Bernstein, Michel Legrand, Richard Rodgers, Kurt Weill, George Gershwin, Frederick Loewe, and Billy Joel.

The recordings by Philips Classics are one of the most important testimonies to the significance of Williams' work with the Boston Pop. The interpretive acumen and stylistic range of the great conductor John Williams can be experienced in all their beauty in this edition.