[img]http://www.snitchseeker.com/images/news/hogwarts_80.jpg' align='middle'> Azkaban Score John Williams Most memorable - John Williams Summary:
With the score for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, John Williams work actually jumps off the screen and in several instances proves to be more of a focal point than the images unfolding in tandem. The soundtrack album comes off almost as an entire symphonic suite. Article: Artical:
Quote: John William's score/soundtrack to the film. Williams, who is perhaps the most prolific composer of the 20th century, at least in terms of writing music for films. William's music has graced just about every major blockbuster from Star Wars to Jaws to E.T., Superman, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and too many others to mention here. And yes, he's composed the scores for all three Harry Potter films to date and is already on board to score Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Quote: What this means is that the music should work with the film, not overshadow it. In the case of the Potter films, I would say that Williams' scores for the first two films pretty much accomplished that and may have, to a degree, even been overshadowed by the films themselves. What I mean by this is that I honestly do not recall the music from either Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone or Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. From what I do recall it neither overshadowed the action on screen nor did it fade into the background. It instead struck the perfect balance and worked as an additional emotional and dramatic framework. Quote: With the score for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, however, Williams work actually jumps off the screen and in several instances proves to be more of a focal point than the images unfolding in tandem. Perhaps I was more acutely aware of Williams' score this time around due to the fact that I didn't find the film to be as engaging as the first two installments. I don't know. Quote: One of the cool things about the soundtrack is that most of Williams cues are at least a minute and 30-seconds long, so they work more as mini suites or movements than as brief sound snippets (as is often the case with many a score, which can be made up of dozens of short, 15-to-30-second bits instead of longer segments). Additionally the album comes off almost as an entire symphonic suite as opposed to just a bunch of random elements tossed together. The only default is that there are a few seconds of dead air between each track, so it doesn't flow effortlessly from one to the next, but then that's nitpicking. Quote: The album commences with \"Lumos! (Hedwig's Theme)\" which is more like the ongoing transitional theme that you will hear running throughout the score. A sprightly and eerie little number, it sets a somewhat upbeat gothic tone to the proceedings. \"Aunt Marge's Waltz\" keeps the whimsical nature intact as strings flit and flirt with the woodwinds in a fairy tale like dance. The lower registered woodwinds lead into \"The Knight Bus,\" creating a false sense of warmth and security before totally collapsing into a cacophonous be-bop jazz explosion that is part late night smoky lounge and part Max Fleishman cartoonery. The happy environment is quickly dissipated with one fell swoop of \"Apparition on the Train,\" an ominous number that evokes all the frightening imagery of the greatest ghost stories ever told. Quote: The score's lone vocal track, \"Double Trouble,\" features a mock gothic children's choir mixing elements of the infamous \"toil and trouble\" witch rhyme, singing over an appropriately Elizabethan musical backdrop. Then it's back to the dramatic with \"Buckbeak's Flight,\" an installment that begins with thundering kettle drums before lifting into lofty symphonia. Rustic flutes return the tone to the songs from the wood motif on \"A Window to the Past,\" before the song succumbs to elevated orchestral theatrics and then returns to the subtle flute flourishes where it began. Quote: As the title implies, \"The Whomping Willow and the Snowball Fight\" is appropriately chaotic, flurrying expanses of strings and woodwinds combating one another while thunderous drums and swatches whirling dervish inspired musicality prance, dodge, and parry throughout. With \"Secrets of the Castle,\" the tone is once again taken down a few notches to expose subtle and richly minimalistic ebb of faint ambiance, almost like a musical secret whispered quietly inside the darkened hallways of Hogwart's. The now trademark whimsy that Williams has exhibited routinely throughout the first portion of the overall score returns on \"The Portrait Gallery\" as he literally captures the vast expanse of crazy characters that inhabit the \"living\" pictures that line the walls of the school. Quote: For \"Hagrid the Professor\" the tone once again takes on an air of Elizabethan cheer, sounding like a cross between a court jester's theme song and a rousing, yet subdued drinking cantor; you can just envision a bunch of harlequin clad buffoons prancing around with an air of goofy pomp and circumstance. \"Monster Books and Boggarts!\" is a clash of contrasts, both haunting and capricious. Contrary to the name, \"Quiddich, Third Year\" is a forceful and propulsive number that removed from the context of the film seems more suited to a monstrous chase scene than a friendly game of sport. The addition of detached and wailing vocals only adds to the strange feel of the movement. Quote: Likewise \"Lupin's Transformation and Chasing Scabbers\" starts out incredibly quiet, almost with a reigned in sense of reserve. It slowly builds with tenuous strings and a kind of spiraling menace, yet it still remains somewhat grounded, albeit in an eerie and frightening manner. \"The Patronous Light\" is angelic in nature, thanks to a combined chorus of voices delivering an ebbing and flowing tonal chant that is beyond ethereal that can only be described as an angelic drone. Quote: The next two entries are somewhat longer than any of the other movements on the album, with \"The Werewolf Scene\" clocking in at 4:25 and \"Saving Buckbeak\" breaking into 6:39. The former is again a slow burn flush of building intensity a la \"Lupin's Transformation…\" The latter is an uber subdued number that floats along with an unnervingly beautiful sense of quietude. \"Forward to Time Past\" continues the restrained motif, keeping the music in the lower registers and the orchestra reigned in. \"The Dementors Converge\" then breaks the cycle, unleashing some genuinely menacing vibes that evoke feelings of dread and terror. \"Finale\" continues the ominous feelings, then slips into angelic vocalizations, and eventually rounds out with Elizabethan folk tinges, effectively capturing all the dramatic and emotional elements that have been expressed throughout the previous 19 tracks. Quote: The album commences with the 12-minute-plus \"Mischief Managed!,\" which is an epic mini-score in and of itself. Returning to the elaborate, yet cartoonish thematics he employed earlier in the overall score, Williams coaxes the orchestra all over the place, including a very gothic chamber bit of \"Double Trouble\" inserted at the 7-minute mark and accompanied by whimsical bursts of woodwind for added effect. The piece finally ends as the entire score began, with the engaging and recognizable bits of Hagrid's theme. Quote: On the surface the constant flitting from ominous slabs of score into the more witty, whimsical, and lighthearted portions would seem a bit erratic and indeed at first it does. But the longer you let the score sink in the more it makes sense as a whole. And while by no means an expert in symphonic works or the career of Mr. Williams, the thing that immediately struck me, both while watching the film and then later when listening to the score by itself, is that this may be the most diverse thing I've heard the composer score to date. There's a wide variety of divergent styles and sounds loping, snaking, and swirling about, eventually colliding and melding with one another to create an engaging symphony that manages to encapsulate a range of dramatic emotions. Which is exactly what a good score is supposed to do, if you think about it. There overall score is 7.8/10
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