Schindler's List

John Williams composed the score for Schindler’s List. The composer was amazed by the film, and felt it would be too challenging. He said to Spielberg, “You need a better composer than I am for this film.” Spielberg replied, “I know. But they’re all dead!” Williams played the main theme on piano, and following Spielberg’s suggestion, he hired Itzhak Perlman to perform it on the violin. In the scene where children are transported away on trucks, while their screaming mothers give chase, the folk song “Oyf’n Pripetshok (Yiddish: אויפֿן פּריפּעטשיק)” is sung by a children’s choir. The song was often sung by Spielberg’s grandmother, Becky, to her grandchildren.The clarinet solos heard in the film were recorded by Klezmer virtuoso Giora Feidman.