Music

[GulPlum]

The original post is a couple of days old, but my reply at the time 
didn't get through for some reason (though it's possible that my 
memory of having replied is completely imaginary). :-)

Felicia Rickmann wrote:

> Secondly, after just one viewing the music in CoS did not make as 
> huge an impression as in PS (but there is obviously enough to fill
> a cd).  

As a fan of movie music, all I can say is that I'm glad about that. 
Don't get me wrong, Williams is one of the best film composers 
working today, but I have several gripes about his music - most of it 
isn't exactly my style (I'm not really into full blown brassy 
orchestras and chamber music is more to my taste), and IMO over the 
last decade or so he's tended to plagiarise himself something rotten. 
Furthermore, one of the first comments I ever made about PS/SS was 
that the sound mixing was appalling, and the music mix was WAY too 
loud. As a result, it was impossible to watch PS/SS without the music 
making a big impact, and indeed a distracting imapct.

Thankfully, the mix for CoS is a lot more subtle, and even for non-
dialogue scenes like the Quidditch match the music is very audible 
but not excessive, fulfilling its role in the movie and not being an 
extended advert for the CD. The vast majority of the music is 
repeated from the first movie, except for a few new themes (notably 
for Lockhart, Fawkes and Dobby) and I really am in two minds about 
whether or not to buy the soundtrack. 

> Finally, a little enlightenment please on William Ross, arranger of 
> the John Williams music for CoS?  I am not a regular film-goer and
> am not familiar with his work elsewhere.  

To add to the IMDb link someone else posted, Ross is pretty well 
respected in film music circles, both in terms of the professionals 
and film music fans. He even crops up every now and again in online 
forums dedicated to the subject. As a clasically-trained multi-
instrumentalist and conductor, his main claim to fame is as an 
arranger and/or conductor of orchestral music written by non-
classically trained composers (his big break was working with Danny 
Elfman on some of his early films), although he really came to 
prominence as a composer of incidental TV music (notably, MacGuyver).


To be perfectly honest, I've not seen a single one of the movies for 
which he's composed (as opposed to arranged or conducted) music, 
although I have heard a few bits of music out of context. His 
orchestral style is very Williams-ish, which is doubtless why he was 
selected for the job. 

Overall, I suspect CoS would've sounded much the same even if 
Williams had done the arranging, although probably the mix would've 
sounded a lot louder. :-)