Viewers in the UK may have seen this Berlin Philharmonic concert on BBC Four in an unscheduled airing on Christmas Day, when it replaced John Bridcut’s film of Schubert’s Winterreise. There was the magnificent concert hall of the BPO and the congenial host conductor, John Williams, who introduced the programme, standing erect and alert in his 90th year. The CDs omit his spoken links to concentrate on the music, a treasure trove of cinematic soundtracks from the past five decades of the Hollywood maestro’s output.

The Yellow Label already has two splendid John Williams recordings, one with Gustavo Dudamel and the LAPO (6/19), the other featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter in arrangements by Williams under his clear-headed direction (A/19). Through a clever shuffling of the pack, however, this new issue doesn’t double up on as many titles as one might have anticipated. Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Far and Away are arranged as suites, and a concert piece, the curiously anonymous Elegy (for two lost children) for cello and orchestra, with Bruno Delepelaire as soloist, makes a first appearance.

As one might expect, the playing of the Berliners offers innumerable rewards. The Olympic Fanfare blazes away, the colours of the wind and brass making something special of their parts in a formulaic composition. In Far and Away, the lower strings plunge into the final section of the suite as if possessed, while I’ve never heard the Harry Potter theme shaped with such elegance, the shimmering strings drawing a delicate web around the glockenspiel music. ‘Marion’s Theme’ from Indiana Jones, one of Williams’s loveliest tunes, is graced by a flautist with the sensibility of Orpheus. ‘Harry’s Wondrous World’ and the Star Wars procession and finale – reminders of the composer’s adeptness in wrapping his themes into cohesive conclusions – find the orchestra playing with the commitment that comes from a first encounter. Not many composers have a chance to have their 90th birthday celebrated in such style!