"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"
Score Composed by Patrick Doyle
Audio Clips: The Quidditch World Cup | The Black Lake | Hogwart's Hymn

Harry's back, and this time, he's bringing Patrick Doyle, and not John Williams, along for the ride. Years ago, it was Williams who replaced Doyle for the score of 'Stepmom', but this time it's the other way around (though Williams left on a voluntary basis with this).

While most may look at having a new composer for the series with a bit of disappointment, I feel the opposite -- I have been quite stoked about this for some time now. For one, I wanted very much to see Doyle regain a mainstream, blockbuster assignment, and secondly, I was curious to hear a new musical direction for the series.

Doyle maintains the high scoring standards of the Harry Potter world but in a different way. His music is very pleasing and uplifting, and very much differs from Williams' approach with the series on an emotional and dramatic level. He writes nearly an entire score of original music, with merely a hint of the original themes from the previous films. For me, this tells me he is a composer who has a lot of pride and didn't set out to write a score full of another composer's theme. This works both for and against Doyle, ironically enough, but more on that later.

The impact of the composer change is evident almost immediately with the third track (The Quidditch World Cup) which was a cue also used in the first trailer for this movie. It's mostly action orientated, and moves along in a rather intense fashion after the first stanza of fanfare plays out. It's easy to get involved with film music when listening to a musical cue like this, because it is quite involving and tone friendly.

The more the music of this score evolved, the more excited I became. I was really urging Doyle on to come through with this, and he most certainly did. You can tell he was having fun while developing this music. In one listen, it was easy to conclude that the music for this Harry Potter installment is both at once increasingly mature and more emotional than the other Potter soundtracks. In a way, he raises the stakes of this series with his contributions.

Doyle did not stray away from writing a main theme for this picture. At a high level, I can say it is sweet sounding, charming and resonates with a dash of magic. On the other hand, if he had restated the themes from Williams' writing a bit more, it would have added a deeper connection between the movies. As it is, there is a bit of a void there without it. In fact, there were moments on the soundtrack that were practically begging for a moment or two of the previous Potter themes. Had he added that, than this score would have sailed over the top.

Overall, there is very little to gripe about, however. This is a score that is done professionally, and offers a vast appeal on many levels. Doyle takes a jaunt into many musical arenas with a varied style full of whimsical waltzes, heroic fanfare, and emotional passages...and he does all this with the flourish I expected!

Final Score: A superbly entertaining score from a great composer. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is not to be missed!

Audio Clips: The Quidditch World Cup | The Black Lake | Hogwart's Hymn