I think one needs to differentiate between scores for water-themed movies and scores that 'connote' water in general, regardless of the subject it was written for. There are 'water film scores' that don't really connote water on its own, and vice versa cues NOT written for anything with water that nonetheless has that association.
For example, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE never gave me water associations. On the other hand, several cues on Jean Michel Jarre's WAITING FOR COSTEAU album do (OK, so there's a marginal water link there to begin with, but still...).
Someone else briefly mentioned JAWS. The passage from that score that most makes me think of the sea is Williams's surging, overlapping waves of strings as the camera slowly zooms in on the water outside the window, through the shark's jaws in Quint's cabin.
My favorite? "The Entrapment" from Alien 3, with the wildly descending strings as they pour cold water on the creature after it emerges from the molten metal bath.
Someone else briefly mentioned JAWS. The passage from that score that most makes me think of the sea is Williams's surging, overlapping waves of strings as the camera slowly zooms in on the water outside the window, through the shark's jaws in Quint's cabin.
Good one. For me it's the sequence where Hooper dives to check the hull on Gardner's boat. There's an eerie, echoing effect that suggests being alone in deep water.
