{"id":5031,"date":"2012-06-07T12:51:01","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T16:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5031"},"modified":"2012-06-07T12:51:01","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T16:51:01","slug":"cd-complete-harry-potter-film-music-collection-the-2012-2-cds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5031","title":{"rendered":"CD: Complete Harry Potter Film Music Collection, The (2012) – 2 CDs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>C<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Rating: Excellent<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0Silva Screen<\/a> \/ Released: March 26, 2012<\/p>\n

Tracks & Album Length:\u00a0CD1: 17 tracks \/ (63:56) + CD2: 17 tracks \/ (56:10)<\/p>\n

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Special Notes: 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by David Wishart.<\/p>\n

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Composer: John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper, Alexandre Desplat<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Silva Screen\u2019s 2-disc compilation wisely separates John Williams\u2019 scores for the first 3 films from the remaining five to create two distinct programs featuring themes culled from the monster franchise.<\/p>\n

With more than 8 hours of music to distill into a 2-hour minute retrospective, CD1 focuses on the core themes in their purest form, starting with \u201cHedwig\u201d and its canted melody, and “Harry\u2019s Wondrous World,” itself an amalgam of fanciful heroic sections which Williams easily reconfigures into romantic variations.<\/p>\n

The Potter scores do address moments of fantasy, terror, wonderment, and youthful camaraderie, but Williams\u2019 instrumentation also take all the subtext of friendship and individual & group experiences and places them front & center, ensuring audiences are directly involved with the complex mythology designed by author J.K. Rowling.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 Potter scores maintain continuity by sticking to the huge orchestral palette, giving the characters\u2019 odyssey a similarly epic sound, with moments of extraordinary grandeur and bouts of intimacy. Not unlike his1978 Superman<\/strong> score (which set the gold standard for that franchise, but wasn\u2019t wholly carried forward by other composers in the sequels), melody is king, and most of the cues are designed to propel screen action using swirling, eddying, spiraling motifs, with waves of low tones and little gestures to accent specific moods (such as the furtive nature of \u201cThe Chamber of Secrets,\u201d which owes a little to Williams\u2019 deliciously grim Dracula<\/strong>). Also memorable are the fine details in cues where it\u2019s just a theme statement, yet the nuances in the all-woodwind \u201cNimbus 2000\u201d are filled with an amazing level of wit and merriment.<\/p>\n

The shift to a new group of composers for the remaining five films in the franchise may seem like a bold move \u2013 virtually each James Bond installment since Tomorrow Never Dies<\/strong> (1997) has been scored by David Arnold \u2013 but unlike the Bond films which only need to maintain continuity by quoting and riffing Monty Norman\u2019s theme however the composers see fit, the Potter films mandated a large orchestral scope, strong themes, and tonal shading that specifically comments on the changes in the aging lead characters, as well as the increasing darkness which permeated later installments.<\/p>\n

Patrick Doyle\u2019s approach for Part 4 is steeped in Celtic themes with heavy strings and thunderous organic percussion, but he also distinguishes his approach from Williams\u2019 more florid style by adding sly minimalist touches (note the cyclical string figures in \u201cForeign Visitors Arrive\u201d), not to mention his own knack for evoking dark psychologies.<\/p>\n

Doyle\u2019s score is given the bigger showcase on CD2, perhaps because its style establishes the darker tone for the disc, and its suite format & lengthy theme versions are less jarring for the listener after a heavy dose of ebullient Williams on CD1. Balancing the grim cues like \u201cBlack Lake\u201d is the regal \u201cNeville\u2019s Waltz,\u201d the brassy (and very British) \u201cHogwarts March,\u201d and the string-saturated \u201cHarry in Winter,\u201d subtly ornamented with glockenspiel hits.<\/p>\n

After the regal \u201cHogwarts Hymn,\u201d CD2 moves into the remaining scores, of which Parts 5 & 6 were scored by Nicholas Hooper who reintegrates Williams\u2019 main themes, and some new material, including the gilded & bombastic \u201cProfessor Umbridge,\u201d the celtic-styled, thunderous \u201cFlight of the Order of the Phoenix,\u201d and \u201cLoved Ones and Leaving,\u201d which closes the suite on a very pensive theme statement.<\/p>\n

The CD\u2019s final three cues pay homage to the remaining Potter Parts, starting with Hooper\u2019s mournful \u201cDumbledore\u2019s Farewell,\u201d and two theme extracts from Alexandre Desplat\u2019s \u201cObviate\u201d and \u201cLily\u2019s Theme\u201d from Parts 7 and 8. Even though the last 3 films are given singular theme representation, they form a fitting close to the franchise, recapping main themes, and certainly from a mood stance, wrapping up the characters\u2019 journey.<\/p>\n

As a 2-hour musical journey, it\u2019s quite surprising how the narrative moves from bubbly and pubescently giddy towards darker terrain, and closes with grim themes tied to death and grievous loss.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Soundtrack Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0C<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to:\u00a0Home \/\u00a0Soundtrack \u00a0Reviews \/ C . Rating: Excellent Label:\u00a0Silva Screen \/ Released: March 26, 2012 Tracks & Album Length:\u00a0CD1: 17 tracks \/ (63:56) + CD2: 17 tracks \/ (56:10) . Special Notes: 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by David Wishart. . Composer: John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper, Alexandre Desplat . . Review: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[93,1348,148,1350,1349],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1j9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5031"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5037,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions\/5037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}