Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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Music CD Cover
Composer: John WilliamsEdition: Music CD
Format: Enhanced, Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 2004-05-25
Music Label: Warner Bros. Pictures
Soundtracks:
- Lumos! (Hedwig's Theme)
- Aunt Marge's Waltz
- The Knight Bus
- Apparition on the Train
- Double Trouble
- Buckbeak's Flight
- A Window to the Past
- The Whomping Willow and the Snowball Fight
- Secrets of the Castle
- The Portrait Gallery
- Hagrid the Professor
- Monster Books and Boggarts!
- Quidditch, Third Year
- Lupin's Transformation and Chasing Scabbers
- The Patronus Light
- The Werewolf Scene
- Saving Buckbeak
- Forward to Time Past
- The Dementors Converge
- Finale
- Mischief Managed!
Free Music Notes for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Free Music Review: Hugely creative. The best of the Potter scores.
Hit: 5 Stars
The greatest thing about this soundtrack is the pure creativity that fuels the entire thing from start to finish. Williams did good work on the first two films, using all the expected instruments in the expected style for a fantasy film, and of course adding his magic touch to make it, well, magical. Here, he goes beyond what he did for the first two films.
The soundtrack starts off with Hedwig's Theme, which serves as the identity for the Harry Potter series. Anyone would have expected this. Then, in the second track, he does something different, and he writes a Tchaikovsky-esque comedy sequence that in the film, accompanies Aunt Marge's scene. This is a fun cue that for the most part is detached from the rest of the score, but it is hilarious and fits its part perfectly.
The next track, The Knight Bus, starts off with a bassoon solo that is a perfect fit for Stan Shunpike. Then suddenly, the track bursts into wild jazz, which is a perfect fit for the Knight Bus (sorry if I'm starting to sound like a broken record!). This track recalls a past Williams score, Catch Me If You Can.
The next major track, Double Trouble, contains the new major theme for Prisoner of Azakban, and again, it is something different: it takes Shakespeare lyrics and matches it with music that sounds almost Baroque. Thus, we have the first three major tracks that are Romantic, Jazz, and Baroque.
Then, we get into the heart of the soundtrack. Buckbeak's theme is soaring and gusty and wonderful, and rivals the music Williams wrote for E.T.'s flying scene oh so many years ago. Then, we are introduced to the other major theme of Prisoner of Azakban, a Window to the Past, which is played on some sort of flute or piccolo. It plainly speaks of solitude and love, and is one of the highlights of the score.
I could go on and on about every track, but that would make this review stupidly long. So, I'll just talk about one more track: Quidditch, Third Year. I can't even fathom how much inspiration must have been behind this track. The strings, winds, and brass are all in a flurry in this track. Basically, it is a fugue, with a main motif and a ton of highly complex music to go along with it. It's fun listening to it and trying to wrap your mind around everything that's happening. I'd be prepared to bet that Williams worked harder on the Quidditch scene, then the people in the Visual Effects department, and that's saying something.
Another highlight of the score is the little motif for Wormtail and Sirius Black. Simple but creepy, William employs it whenever Wormtail and/or Sirius are near.
Overall, Prisoner of Azakban is a highly effective score, and chock full of creativty, but also substance. If it has a weakness, it is that it doesn't use many of the great motifs that were used in the first two films, although I think this has much to do with the new director--I honestly can't imagine Voldemort's theme from the first film being used in Alfonso Cuaron's Harry Potter film. I wish this score had won the Oscar, but alas, Williams will have to win his sixth another time. Still, I can give this score a great recommendation.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Poster
Oscar and Grammy Award winning composer John William returns with an enchanted score inspired by the magic of the forthcoming summer blockbuster Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. Always a hit with fans of the enormously successful Harry Potter films, as well as fans of John Williams -- one of the most popular and successful American orchestral composers of the modern age. Extras, enhanced with exclusive wallpaper and screensaver, flip book of stills from film, exclusive link to demo of new EA Harry Potter video game, Golden Ticket Contest: Winner receives trip to Hollywood to tour WB lot and museum, pull out poster.If the commercial constraints of genre and chronic Hollywood sequelitis threaten to musically straitjacket even a legend like John Williams, the veteran playfully rebuffs such cynicism in his rich, mirthful score for this third chapter of the Harry Potter cycle. Whether inspired by a willful desire not to repeat himself, the continued reinvention of his jazz roots that brightened his scores for Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal, or the story's requirement for a handful of fresh themes, Williams informs his work here with an often dizzying range. The warm mysticism of "Hedwig's Theme" and classical farrago of "Aunt Marge's Waltz" can scarcely prepare one for the swinging, off-kilter "Knight Bus," a romp that suggests a head-on collision between the big-band bombast of1941 and the loopy, Cantina Band kitsch of Star Wars. From there Williams skips back a half-millennium or so for inspiration, conjuring the ancient children's chorus "Double Trouble" (its text adapted from no less than MacBeth), a medieval theme that becomes one of the score's inspirational foundations. Those with a taste for the composer's patent orchestral thunder won't be disappointed either, as the Herrmann-influenced percussion/brass bombast of "Buckbeat's Flight" and "The Whomping Willow.." attest with rousing zeal. It's arguably Williams' best Potter score to date, a soundtrack whose inspirations sprawl across six centuries -- and as many disparate musical styles. Enhanced CD features include a photo gallery and exclusive computer wallpaper and screensaver files. -- Jerry McCulley
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