Potter Score is Williams All Over

What can one say about a film composer who, in the last 40 years, has racked up 107 Oscar, Golden Globe, Grammy and Emmy nominations and has won 28 of those awards?

He writes darn good movie music, that’s what.

John Williams’s latest effort, the soundtrack to the much-anticipated movie adaptation of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, is no exception. Neither Potter fans nor admirers of Williams’s previous work (Jaws, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and many, many more) will be disappointed.

The atmospheric “Prologue” that begins the soundtrack, with its tinny, haunting melody, conjures images of fallen leaves swirling in an autumn breeze under a full moon. It is the music of cinematic anticipation, of something wondrous about to happen. A movie cliché, perhaps, but one that is tremendously effective for Rowling’s world of wizardry.

After the “Prologue,” the soundtrack ranges from soaring (“Harry’s Wondrous World”) to frenzied (“Hedwig’s Theme”) to downright creepy (“Christmas at Hogwarts”). Throughout, though, Williams maintains an air of magic befitting a Potter tale. There are chimes and bells aplenty to keep things mysterious—even the full-blown orchestral passages have a certain otherworldly feeling about them.

Everywhere in the Harry Potter soundtrack, Williams’s mastery of the film score genre is readily apparent. Indeed, a composer as gifted and accomplished as Williams may only have one legitimate complaint: After 40 years of wild success, it gets harder and harder to produce music that is both new and brilliant. While the Harry Potter score is certainly great music, it doesn’t represent a breakthrough in the field. It sounds like the quintessential movie soundtrack because it is similar to a lot of other movie soundtracks, particularly Williams’s older work.

The “Prologue,” which so readily evokes images of midnight mystery, may remind you of similar music that accomplished a similar goal in Williams’s 1982 score for E.T. The sweeping melody of “Harry’s Wondrous World” smacks of the closing theme from 1980’sThe Empire Strikes Back, also by Williams. And the eerie holiday vibe of “Visit to the Zoo” will make you swear that you’re listening to Williams’s soundtrack from 1990’s Home Alone.

In fact, there isn’t much in the Harry Potter score that we haven’t heard, in a slightly different form, before. With the exception of the bizarre Christmas carol-incantation hybrid “Christmas at Hogwarts,” it’s all standard fare. But that isn’t to say that Williams’s career is on the decline. We’ve never looked to him for something revolutionary. Studios like Williams because he creates the memorable themes that immortalize movies. The public likes him because he puts out orchestral music that is readily accessible to the average listener. When people hear a musical passage and can instantly name the film it came from, chances are Williams is responsible. That’s what he’s does, and nothing more is expected of him. Nor should it be.

So enjoy the Harry Potter soundtrack for what it is—not a brand-new idea, but great movie music, Williams style. And after fans see the film a few dozen times, and a few pops orchestras play the score at holiday concerts, maybe Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone will join Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark and so many other Williams works in the canon of American pop culture, forever etched in our collective consciousness.