Music from the Harry Potter Films

Album Review

Reynold da Silva's Silva Screen Records label is devoted to making re-recordings of film scores, usually employing the presumably inexpensive City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. Here, the label mixes cues from the scores of the four Harry Potter films that had been released as of 2005 — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — the first three composed by John Williams, and the last by Patrick Doyle. In so doing, it demonstrates that the film music is not one of the reasons why the Harry Potter series has been so successful. Williams, notably in his main theme, "Harry's Wondrous World," basically repeats himself, getting into a charming adventure mode familiar from his work on the Star Wars movies and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. On the other hand, Doyle, whose work takes up 40 percent of the disc, doesn't really try to sound like Williams; he is more interested in providing standard-issue programming music, introducing elements of Scottish folk here or a dance ("The Potter Waltz") there, as required. But neither composer is really doing his best work. For its part, the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra does its usual adequate job.