Uploaded June 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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Home Alone Medley
by John Williams
arr. Hendrik Kits van Heyningen ‘14

Banished to the attic for disrupting a family gathering, eight-year old Kevin McCallister is subsequently forgotten when his family embarks on a Christmas vacation. The young boy is left home alone, and to top it all off, two bandits, Harry and Marv, plan to rob his house in the coming week! But Kevin is naturally enjoying his newfound freedom, and this medley begins with the main title theme “Somewhere in My Memory,” a joyous expression of the innocent childhood delight that accompanies Christmas. As this fades away into the parallel minor, the carol that Kevin hears sung by the church choir, “Star of Bethlehem,” emerges with a beautiful yet sad melody expressing the darker side of Christmas. Kevin’s overwhelming feeling of being a young boy all alone without his family is encapsulated in the theme, and the music reaches a dark climax as a scary old man arrives. But the old man, Marley, turns out to be nice, and the darkness of the theme quickly dissolves right before newfound energy thrusts Kevin into action in “Setting the Trap!,” a lively action-sequence variation of Christmas themes as Kevin booby-traps his whole house in preparation for the coming burglars. Although at first the traps seem successful (Marv takes an iron to the face; Harry takes a blow-torch to the head), the bandits begin to catch poor Kevin, so the brass blasts a chillingly dark restatement of “Star of Bethlehem.”
But from the clutches of defeat, Kevin is able to triumph with the help of Marley knocking the bandits out, and this is expressed through the final cadence of the dark “Star of Bethlehem” bringing us unexpectedly to the most exuberant statement yet of “Somewhere in my Memory.” There are now Christmas cheers to go around; the bandits have been captured, and Kevin’s family has returned! And even when this grand music and grand emotions begin to fade, the magic of Christmas is still there, so the medley ends with a tender piano solo leading us to quiet bliss.

Program Notes by Hendrik Kits van Heyningen