CD REVIEW - Music from the Harry Potter Films


Music from the Harry Potter Films
Music by John Williams and Patrick Doyle
Silva Screen SILCD1206 (U.K.)
15 Tracks 54:34 mins

Continuing Silva Screen's series of recordings of music from films featuring iconic characters, on 10th April the label will release this collection of music from the big screen adventures of the popular children's literary character Harry Potter.
Music from all four films thus far is featured, with a surprisingly even split between the work of Williams and Doyle, especially considering Williams worked on three of the films and Doyle only the most recent.
There are three tracks from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, including the ever-popular "Harry's Wondrous World" and "Hedwig's Theme;" four from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which of course featured Williams' music adapted by William Ross, including "Fawkes the Phoenix," another popular theme; just one from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, though this is a suite of three cues; and seven selections from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Not to say that Doyle didn't do an excellent job on this latest film, but the album does appear balanced in his favour, with so many selections from his score, even if the lion's share of the actual running time is slightly in Williams' favour. Whatever, there isn't much of missing from the Williams scores that I would have liked included.
The City of Prague Philharmonic of course perform all the music, with just two tracks being conducted by one-time regular conductor Nic Raine, the remainder featuring the album's producer James Fitzpatrick at the helm. Fitzpatrick appears to be conducting regularly these days and elicits near perfect performances from the Orchestra.
Devoted film music followers among you will no doubt already have all the original soundtrack albums to these films, but this album would make a nice gift for any young Potter fans you might know.