1974 Soundtrack – Earthquake

Earthquake is a 1974 American ensemble disaster drama film directed and produced by Mark Robson and starring Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner. The plot concerns the struggle for survival after a catastrophic earthquake destroys most of Los Angeles.

John Williams‘ music for Earthquake was the second of his trio of scores for large-scale disaster films, having previously scored The Poseidon Adventure and following with The Towering Inferno. Williams scored Earthquake and The Towering Inferno during the summer of 1974, with both scores showing similarities to one another (notably Earthquake’s theme and The Towering Inferno’s love theme sharing the same eight-note melody, albeit in different keys). The music of the song “C’est si Bon” by Henri Betti is played on the guitar in the middle of the film.

On December 10, 2019, La-La Land Records released a fully remastered and expanded version of Williams’ music, as part of the Disaster Movie Soundtrack Collection, which includes the remastered expansions of Williams’s music for this film, as well as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure.