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| DETAILS | Released
25 August 2009 | | Composer
Nicholas Hooper | | Label
Decca |
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 Review
Having joined the potter franchise with 2007’s fifth entry — his first big-screen work — Nicholas Hooper faced the huge challenge, like his predecessor Patrick Doyle, of not only labouring in the shadow of John Williams, whose work on the first three films provided Potter with a distinct musical identity, but also the heavy demand to maintain those themes with regards to the ongoing storyline.
The problem with Hooper’s Order Of The Phoenix score was not his discarding of familiar themes (Doyle did the same), but that he didn’t craft music that matched Williams’ epic scope, something Doyle did achieve. Consequently, Hooper’s debut was sufficient, but generally disappointing.
With the sixth film, Hooper is at least aided by an emotionally rich story that takes in love, loss and encroaching doom. Sadly, he fails to craft an engaging score. There’s also a sense that he focused more on the needs of individual scenes, rather than the score as whole, and it sounds disjointed.
Granted, there is a slightly increased use of Williams’ themes in Opening, Ginny and Ron’s Victory, yet they play like slight fragments rather than full statements. There’s also a further misstep with Hooper’s outright denial of Doyle’s own thematic contributions for Harry, which would have worked rather well, given the story.
Given Dumbledore’s pivotal presence, Hooper’s crafted the choir-led theme In Noctem for the majestic wizard. While very elegant, it doesn’t fit with the character’s ultimate fate. In fact, like the score as a whole, it works, but it doesn’t thrive. Here’s hoping that Williams gets his diary out for Potter’s two-film grand finale.
Reviewer: Danny Graydon
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