Jerry Goldsmith made a triumphant return to the Barbican Centre in London and the London Symphony Orchestra last night for the first of two concerts with the world famous orchestra. The composer was in a clearly relaxed mood and enjoying the attention from his fans for the first time in nearly two years.

The evening began with the LSO Discovery Talk between Jerry Goldsmith and film historian Adrian Edwards. As before Mr Edwards shows little knowledge of Jerry Goldsmith's career in film and often seems that he is struggling to ask the composer an intelligent question. But Mr Goldsmith doesn't seem to mind. In fact I'm sure he prefers this kind of mild questioning over the more intrusive questions he may get from his knowledgeable fans. If anything it makes for a fun and relaxed chat and some what amusing for his serious fans. Questions on why he didn't score Star Trek 2 and 3 and the Planet Of The Ape's sequels are well known but Mr Edwards genuinely seemed unaware of the answers. Talk of Star Trek Nemesis revealed the composer's surprise on the negative response the movie has had and thought the film was one of the best of the series.

Goldsmith did speak on the lack of involvement with director Roman Polanski on Chinatown and the unusual discussions he had with the director in a non film music sense and his discussions with Paramount Pictures supremo Robert Evans.

A couple of questions were opened up to the audience and one came from Sidney Samuelson, famed for his work on the Philharmonic concerts in the 70's and friend of the composer. Goldsmith was clearly touched and surprised to see him and responded to his question on the differences he has found between musicians from around the world.

At 7:30 everybody was seated for the main event and as Goldsmith strolled on to the stage he was greeted by rapturous applause from an audience eager to hear his music. Readying the orchestra from the podium the composer launched into the album arrangement of the end credits from Star Trek Nemesis notable for the infamous Motion Picture theme arrangement which slows part of the theme to a crawl. But the performance was spot on and Goldsmith's new interior theme was complemented by a passionate performance. Not surprisingly anything Star Trek proved to be popular with the audience, with Goldsmith and the musicians receiving sustained applause.

Next up came a lengthy film suite from The Last Castle. For the first time the composer performed the cues as per the film recording as an acknowledgement to his fans love of his scores and specific cues. The LSO showed their grit and convincingly performed a series of cues ranging from the desolate main theme to an exciting action workout. The presence of Taking Command proved to be a spectacular success showing the audience, probably for the first time in concert, how great an action scorer Goldsmith is and how good the LSO are with minimal rehearsal time. For a minor movie, Goldsmith's suite gave the audience a new way to look at this score and probably sudden interest from those who had previously paid the film little attention. In the second half Goldsmith spoke a little on why he called his theme for The Last Castle, September 11th 2001, commenting on the piece being written close to the tragic date.

Next up was the crowd pleasing Twilight Zone the Movie arrangement encompassing three of the four segment themes. Again a fine performance but highlighted by the lead violin for the mischievous and violent Nightmare at 20,000 Feet segment.

The second of Goldsmith's 2002 assignments made its concert debut - The Sum Of All Fears. Goldsmith opened the segment with a shock - Clear The Stadium . The aggressive nature of this piece is just the kind of surprise concert music needs and proved an exciting opening that lead into a fine rendition of The Mission. I had hoped for choral support here, which sadly wasn't in attendance. But thankfully their absence did not detract from this being one of Goldsmith's most powerful concert arrangements with the brass section covering the choral elements impressively and making it a convincing instrumental.

Goldsmith closed the first half with his gorgeous opening theme and closing finale to Lee Tamahori's wilderness thriller The Edge. Perfect for concert, the grand nature of the opening and the emotive delicate finale perfect for the live experience.

After a 20 minute interval Goldsmith returned and joked that he'd been asked to talk to the audience but had used all of his stories up in the pre concert talk. With nothing prepared, but very relaxed, he again opened questions from the audience which ranged from what happened to his Pony Tail; Goldsmith responding with "this is the new me!" And a great come back from a question on who else in Hollywood apart from Goldsmith and John Williams is writing consistently 'good' film music. Goldsmith responded with "that's it!"

Back to the music and the composer kicked off the second half leading the LSO musicians through his lengthy Motion Picture Medley picking up some major film music highlights with notable performances of both Basic Instinct and The Wind And The Lion sounding just perfect.

Following on from The Last Castle suite Goldsmith introduced five cues from his legendary score to Patton. For added authenticity Goldsmith had two of the trumpet players actually stand at the back of the stalls area to create a more realistic echoing - distant trumpet triplet, which worked extremely well. Again, as with The Last Castle, there was a great deal of accuracy in the performance and again all credit to the LSO for making such an effort with some of the composer's most important and treasured work.

The evening closed with the perfect finale; Soarin Over California in which Goldsmith joked on how much he went on the ride before writing the music, clearly thrilled by the experience and using it as an excuse to be inspired to write the short score. The Soarin arrangement here was a little busier than the official recording with more brass taking part and extra percussion supporting. But it made for a superb uplifting moment to a wonderful evening and was very well received by lengthy applause and cheers from the audience.

As expected the audience continued clapping, whistling and shouting to bring Goldsmith back on stage and he did so three times. But alas there was to be no encore. Goldsmith spoke briefly thanking them for a wonderful reception and recalling the comment he got from a member of the audience at the Carnegie Hall concert when Goldsmith said to the audience in a similar situation there was no more music to perform. The response came "Well write some!"

Goldsmith and the musicians retired for the evening and the audience slowly dispersed eager for the following evening to come round.

Jerry Goldsmith returned to the Barbican centre for the second and final concert with the LSO on Thursday evening. After the triumphant programme from the previous evening the audience was readying themselves for a major section of music from Star Trek The Motion Picture as well as some choice Goldsmith music that remains part of his popular concert appearances.

As before the evening began with the pre concert talk hosted by Adrian Edwards. After talk of Patton, and its origins, Goldsmith recalled his collaboration with Franklin J Schaffner before the questions were opened to the floor. These were all answered and included questions on whether Goldsmith would re-record Spartacus. Goldsmith joked whether the person asking was willing to fund the project. Goldsmith revealed he wanted to do it but only with the right amount of time and investment and presently that was not available. He mentioned that the time afforded on the previous North re-recordings was not enough to do the job well enough. There was a humorous question on whether Goldsmith had damaged instruments while recording some of his most frenetic pieces and the use of electronics in his scores. Goldsmith spoke of his fascination with them and commented that if Stravinsky were alive today he would probably be experimenting with them too. Again the composer was on good form and a little more forthcoming than the previous night with Mr Edwards thankfully letting the audience contribute a lot more.

As 7:30pm loomed the audience took their seats and welcomed the LSO and Jerry Goldsmith on to the stage. Goldsmith opened with the crowd pleasing theme from Supergirl performed enthusiastically by the musicians and clearly, judging by the response from the audience, made for a popular inclusion for one of the composer's weaker movie assignments but one of his much loved scores.

Then Goldsmith launched into the remainder of the first part of the evening with an unprecedented series of cues from the first Star Trek film. Arguably Goldsmith's greatest score and probably his most popular. Goldsmith began with the Main Title and End Title music, highlighted by a gorgeous rendition of the Ilea theme. True Goldsmith fans got a treat in the form of the short, but key cue - Floating Office, before launching into the evening's highlight piece The Enterprise. From here we moved to the risky concert proposition; Spock's Walk and the Inner Workings of Veja and the finale pre end credit music. The LSO were simply awesome here performing some quite difficult music for concert performance and making full use of the devices available to go some way to duplicate the mass of electronic devices used for the actual score. By the end of this major musical assault the audience were going ballistic and almost attempted to get Goldsmith back to do an encore at the interval.

Goldsmith returned to more applause and cheers after the interval and initially paused before the next segments taking time to speak to the audience about the music performed so far. The composer again was relaxed and genuine, showing the familiarity and fondness Goldsmith feels for the London venue and his enthusiastic European fans.

Goldsmith talked of First Knight and didn't hide his love that he has for the score, siting the absence of guns and helicopters as benefit from interrupting his music. The composer spoke again on his instruction from Franklin J Schaffner for The Boys From Brazil and once he had told him think ¾ he was keen to go out to dinner with nothing more to be discussed about the score until it was recorded. Goldsmith talked about his popular TV medley and the curiosity and surprise he has with the British audiences enjoying The Waltons series. Finally he mentioned the Fireworks piece and its origins and the fact that when it was performed with actual Fireworks you could hardly hear the music accept for when it was performed at the Hollywood Bowl.

Goldsmith began the second half with a suite of music from First Knight with the composer taking time with the arrangements and bringing the emotional finale music to a charged and powerful finish. The audience again responded to the striking LSO performance and clearly some were moved by this powerful score.

The playful and upbeat Mulan suite followed with an enthusiastic performance from the players and some inspired instrumentation for the far eastern sounds of the Disney animated adventure.

The Boys From Brazil received one of the best renditions of the suite heard to date. Again Goldsmith slowed the tempo here and the performance was less hurried than previous outings for this specially commissioned suite. Brazil remains one of the composer's most popular scores and the audience again responded to the fine performance.

The rousing and exciting TV suite then followed and packed quite a punch with another confident and vigorous performance from the LSO. Probably the best we've ever heard it played from the exciting Man From U.N.C.L.E. arrangement via the melancholy of The Waltons and Dr Kildare via the superlative Room 222 arrangement, to the grandeur of Voyager before the crash bang wallop of the Barnaby Jones arrangement. Again the audience were taken aback by a fabulous work out from the LSO and rigorous conducting from the composer.

The evening officially closed with Goldsmith's 70th Birthday music he wrote to celebrate his life and growing up in LA. Fireworks is the crowd pleaser that makes a perfect finish to any concert and those clearly who had not heard it before were thrilled by this spectacular orchestral workout. With the orchestra firing on all cylinders this made an awesome and unforgettable finish to the concert.

Not surprisingly the applause and cheers went on for some time hoping the composer would return for an encore. Goldsmith did oblige this time and played another exciting performance of his Supergirl theme. Goldsmith addressed the audience again and revealed he would return in February 2004 for the LSO's anniversary and would be writing a special commissioned piece for the orchestra - an orchestra which Goldsmith has now forged very close ties with and clearly a genuine fondness from both sides has steadily developed.

The audience didn't want to let him go and February 2004 seemed a long way off , but those who attended these two concerts walked away with wide smiles and a sudden urge to listen to the music of Jerry Goldsmith. After last years cancellations and concerns for Jerry Goldsmith's health these two concerts were a dream come true for those able to attend and those who hold his music so dear. With the composer in upbeat mood and looking so well these concerts are hopefully only the beginning to a memorable 2003 for Jerry Goldsmith and his art.