Music Composed by John Williams
Rating: *** 1/2

At this point it’s unclear what juggernaut is steaming ahead with greater unstoppable force: the Harry Potter franchise or it’s composer, John Williams. The man continues to reinvent, surprise and impress with each new score. With The Prisoner of Azkaban, Williams has written the best of his three HP scores so far. A score so much like the first two, but yet so different, it’s impossible not to love every minute of it’s magical existence. It’s almost not fair just how good John Williams is here, because how can any other film composer hope to compare?

The major Harry Potter hot button for the press and fans (young, and frightening 20-something males alike) has been the darker tone of the third entry in the boy wizard series. Like the main characters who shed the pudge of childhood, Williams’ score eschews the majority of thematic material he spent so much time working to the bone in the previous two pictures. Gone is “Hedwig’s Theme” (except for brief music box reprises that open and close the album), and the main “Hogwart’s Theme” that was beaten and bloodied from heavy labour in The Chamber of Secrets. Even Fawkes The Phoenix is on vacation. Instead there’s a whole slew of new themes for Prisoner of Azkaban, most prominently the “Double Trouble” (a.k.a. “Something Wicked This Way Comes”) theme first introduced as a song (based on Shakespeare text) performed by prim English school boys and featuring medieval orchestration. This theme will prove to be quite useful for the composer, who cleverly manipulates it throughout the entire score to impressive effect (”Secrets of The Castle”). Also new and definitely fantastic is the Buckbeak material (”Buckbeak’s Flight”, with soaring majesty to spare and then some), and “A Window To The Past”, the theme for the film’s emotional core — Harry’s longing for his dead parents (this theme is worked to maximum strength in “Finale”, wow!). Williams also employs minor motifs for the Dementors (string glissandos, woodwind shots in “Apparition On The Train” and “The Dementor’s Converge”).

John Williams

What’s most awe-inspiring about this album is the rapid clip with which it plows from your stereo. This album moves faster in fact than I can type this review. Prisoner of Azkaban is the best score of the series, and translates into the best album of the series. The action music is beefier, edgier and more thrilling (”The Whomping Willow and The Snowball Fight”, “Quidditch, Third Year”, “The Werewolf Scene”), the cutesy stuff seems more plucky than saccharine. There’s just an overall increased feeling of magic and mystery (”Secrets of The Castle”, “The Patronus Light”) here that has been missing from the series. As an added bonus, you also get Williams riffing on his conspiracy theory material from JFK in “Saving Buckbeak”! The album concludes with the instantly repeatable “Mischief Managed!” an assembly of the scores best moments. It’s Azkaban distilled into twelve entertaining minutes.

The score is performed admirably by a London session orchestra (not the LSO as previously used), and recorded/mixed by Shawn Murphy. The recording is bright and dynamic. When I first heard it I thought it might have been recorded by the Boston Symphony Orchestra because it had a spacious concert sound unlike the immediate and dry Williams scores recorded in Los Angeles or the spacious and ungainly London sound of The Philosopher’s Stone. Enhanced CD alert: pop the disc in your CDRom drive and be prepared to install screensavers, wallpapers and more. Also included is a note from director Alfonso Cuaron, who seems as enamored by Williams as any of the socially deprived fanboys reading this review are.

It’s the high integrity of Williams’ writing that raises this score above many others. The emphasis on solo instruments (recorder most prominently) and period instrumentation adds depth and character, even if it isn’t terribly hip these days to do so. Which is probably a great testament to the intent on the filmmakers to make these films classics. Despite the fact that for the most part they’re overlong and at times slower than a slug in snow, they’ll stand the test of time thanks in no small part due to John Williams’ essential scores. Now if only the films moved as quickly as the albums… (Originally posted June 28, 2004).

Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams; Orchestrated by Conrad Pope and Eddie Karam; Featuring The London Voices and London Oratory School; Recorded and Mixed by Shawn Murphy; Produced by John Williams; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Atlantic / Warner / Sunset, (83711); Release Date: May 25, 2003

01. Lumos! (Hedwig’s Theme) (1′29)
02. Aunt Marge’s Waltz (2′12)
03. The Knight Bus (2′50)
04. Apparition On The Train (1′50)
05. Double Trouble (1′32)
06. Buckbeak’s Flight (2′05)
07. A Window to the Past (3′45)
08. The Whomping Willow and The Snowball Fight (2′20)
09. Secrets of the Castle (2′30)
10. The Portrait Gallery (2′01)
11. Hagrid the Professor (2′00)
12. Monster Books and Boggarts! (2′23)
13. Quidditch, Third Year (3′34)
14. Lupin’s Transformation and Chasing Scabbers (2′58)
15. The Patronus Light (1′30)
16. The Werewolf Scene (4′00)
17. Saving Buckbeak (6′30)
18. Forward to Time Past (2′30)
19. The Dementors Converge (3′10)
20. Finale (3′25)
21. Mischief Managed! (11′45)

Total Playing Time: 68′27