Following the creation of a new score for the scene of the kiss for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I have created a romantic rendition of the love theme which is a variation on Hedwig’s Theme composed by John Williams.
You will notice that the first 40 seconds are quite similar to those that depict the kiss between Harry and Cho. After this, brand new material creates a unified whole with a moving full string treatment of the melody played by the violin solo.
After the release of the fifth instalment of Harry Potter film series, The Order of the Phoenix, many soundtrack fans were disappointed with the score written by Nicholas Hooper. Despite the score works well in the film, the possibilities of the history (both the visual and the plot aspects) demands a more exciting and thematically rich score, following the great works of master John Williams (author of the tree first scores) and even Doyle´s Goblet of fire. After listening Hooper´s score very carefully, both on the CD and on film, I have to admit that my very first impression (what a boring and forgettable score!) has been radically changed. If you give it a second (or even third) chance, you will find that there is a lot of potential in this composer. Good orchestration (following Williams´s path) and great intuition on the depiction of the scenes. And more remembrances of Williams material than is (unfortunately) included on the CD. But, after all, the real fact is that you will probably say 'Ok, great, but where are the new themes that I can whistle for a week?" And this is the weakness of the score. There is not any compelling melody that could captivate our attention. And the pity is that the score is really full of new material… (Umbridge´s theme –one of the highlights-, the room of requirements, The Sirius Deception –one of my favourites-). But some really important moments are treated with such a subtle approach that they do not seem to be Harry Potter scenes. That is the point, some parts like the kiss scene or the final sequence of Sirius have a lack of the traditional Williamnesque grandeur. It seems that Hooper walks too carefully through them, as if he were overwhelmed. And It is a pity, because I like very much his musical ideas (in fact I really love the kiss music) but not for this movie series. As he will return with “The half blood prince”, I hope he will decide unleash his talent in the big scenes and sequences. Regarding my own version of “The Kiss” I have to highlight that it includes two major themes from Williams two firsts scores: Hedwig’s Theme and Voldemort’s Theme (which has never been developed for concert performance). You can download the mp3 HERE. You can also watch the video montage with the new score at the end of this article. Here comes a brief description about the different parts: The music starts which some soft string chords as Harry starts a chat with Cho. Strings become evocative while dark as both the death of Cedric and his relation with Cho creates mixed feelings in Harry. Soon their conversation leads to Voldemort where three notes of his theme arise played on bassoon. Here we find a little climax as the conversation turns from Cedric to Harry’s great task teaching his friends. The music underlines the heroic within this work and the flowing of Cho´s feelings to Harry. The conversation becomes more emotionally intense so the music until Cho notices that mistletoe is growing above they. A celesta underlines the magic of this with an arpeggio. There string chords prepares the final climax where they kiss. A romantic variation of Hedwig’s theme (actually Harry’s) explodes with a leading violin which is the oldest topic of the romantic music. I hope you enjoy this music. Please send me your commentaries!
As a firts example of what you can find here, I´m posting a new concert version of the great main theme from Memoirs of a Geisha: SARUYI´S THEME
Master Williams composes here a very touching theme for Yo-Yo Ma´s gifted cello. Unfortunately, there is not a complete development of the theme on the CD. You may hear the cello part and the orchestral part separately, in different cues. Also, those fragments are preceded or followed by some disturbing music which breaks the beauty of the piece.
I also include a live version of SARUYI´s THEME played by Yo-Yo Ma and John Williams himself on a TV show. Sound is a little bit poor, but is great to hear both of them.
The Soundtrack Forge is a blog devoted to film music scores. The main difference you will find between this and some other blogs related to this subjet is that we are not offering OOP scores nor bootlegs but almost new themes re-edited from various pieces of a score.
This is not a mix but a creation of what we could call “new concert versions” using interesting material which hasn´t been fully developed in its score. We edit different pieces with the same musical phrase trying to achieve a longer more enjoyable theme.
Some other times, we just cut some parts which may break the rhythm of a piece, delivering a most exciting theme.
I hope you may enjoy some of this works as much as I do.
Please, don´t hesitate in sending me your comments or suggestions...
