Williams stepped back less than halfway through the creation of the Harry Potter franchise, his last film for it being Prisoner of Azkaban. From there, three other composers would take turns with the baton: Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper, and Alexandre Desplat. Though each is known among film score enthusiasts, none are known as widely as the master who started the journey. Yet each is now getting a small moment in the spotlight.
I've written before (on numerous occasions) about a series of concerts by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, in which a film is projected above the orchestra as they perform its score live for the audience. Many of these concerts are part of a nationwide "tour"; the music and movies are made available for orchestras around the country to stage their own performances. John Williams is understandably the composer at the center of most of these events. But one ongoing series of the past few years has been working through the entire Harry Potter series. And that series has now moved into the work of other composers.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my favorite of the film franchise, and (at the risk of denigrating the great John Williams), it has my favorite score of the series as well. This was the first of two Potter films scored by Nicholas Hooper, and is full of gems. He provided a marvelous theme for the detestable Delores Umbridge, cloyingly sweet and overwhelmingly aggressive in turns (just like the character). He crafted a rousing and exuberant anthem for the Weasley twins and their spectacular exit from Hogwarts. And his soaring and swelling theme for the training of Dumbledore's Army boosts the emotion of the characters' most empowering scenes.
There's bracing burst of action for the flight to the house where the Order hides away. There's creeping dread for the scenes involving the centaurs and the Death Eaters. There's quietly moving support for Sirius Black's private talk with Harry. And throughout, clever (and smartly sparing) use of that iconic Hedwig theme by John Williams.
Watching this score performed by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, I was also very much struck by how much score there is. The commercially released album contains all the highlights, but the movie is actually filled with many other pieces too short to make that cut. The orchestra rarely sat still for more than a minute or two at a time, with at least 80% of the run time supported by music. And it's music that gives many different sections of the orchestra moments to shine. French horns star, honoring the tone set by Williams in the earlier films, but there are standout moments for clarinets and flutes, violins and cellos, isolated bass, glockenspiel and xylophone, trombones and tuba, and oboes with bassoon.
Once or twice during the concert, the crowd (which had been encouraged by the conductor to be raucous and enthusiastic) got a little bit too loud. I think the different sections of the normally unflappable CSO got a bit out of sync with each other during one the more technically challenging sections. But even if I'm right in this, it lasted only a moment -- and the spirited reactions of the crowd only seemed to fuel their performance at other times, more than enough to make up for any minor slips. It was, in short, a great concert.
The Harry Potter series will continue this summer with the Half-Blood Prince, so if you missed out on this show and wish you hadn't, you'll have the chance to hop aboard the moving train (to Hogwarts) soon enough. I've been to at least a dozen of these film/symphony performances now. I've loved every one and can't recommend them highly enough.
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