Lincoln is the twenty-sixth collaboration between John Williams and Steven Spielberg. In Lincoln John Williams composes a soft and unobtrusive score. This technique does not reduce the musical expression of the score, it strengthens it. The score played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra contains a strong American influence. Although there are only a few scenes in which viewers can hear diegetic music, the opening scene has a fife and drum corps playing off-screen as the crowd chants "We are coming, Father Abra'am" and after the amendment won the vote those in prefer to sing “Battle Cry of Freedom” – the non-diegetic music in the score contains elements of Civil War-era music. Orchestral instruments, such as the violin, trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello, and piano, created the sounds of traditional folk music, as well as hymn modes and musical gestures in the 19th-century American music tradition century. This warm, empathetic soundtrack sits right behind the elegant dialogue in scenes like Freedom's Call and The Remembrance Theme. Freedom's Call could be called Lincoln's main theme. It can be felt at several points in the film, most often when one character challenges others in the pursuit of constitutional equality. This ideal is conveyed in the score in various ways. First, Williams uses harmony to give the theme a sense of purity and optimism. Use only the three major chords in a major key: I, IV and V. Use a third interval between the melody and the bass. Since these thirds are always part of a major chord, the theme has a warm and positive feeling. The slow and stately chordal playing of the theme together with the constant short-long rhythm of the bass are reminiscent of popular music. The theme is associated with...... middle of paper ......or listen to elongated versions of the short-long rhythm heard in Freedom's Call. This suggests that the suffering is shared by the American people and by Lincoln himself – he even lost a son to the war. Lincoln is a combination of music and dialogue. Music brings out emotions that dialogue alone might not. The film's soundtrack provides a greater understanding of the film's characters and setting. In Lincoln, Williams uses different settings, from the woodwinds and strings to the brass chorale in Freedom's Call, to connect Lincoln's public and personal sides. In the theme of memory the solo piano expresses pain and regret allowing us to empathize with Lincoln's loss of a son and the tragedy of the Civil War. People watch movies as a kind of catharsis. Movie soundtracks allow us to laugh, rejoice and cry – to go through the ups and downs with the characters we're seeing.