Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

One of his earlier works, Jeremy Soule\'s score for the first Harry Potter video game captures the sound of John William\'s score without using any of his themes. Interestingly, he wrote the game score before hearing what Williams would do.  The main title introduces a strong brass theme with a soft choir and light chimes in the background. Soule\'s theme for this video game is used often in the score and does attempt to emulate the style of Williams\' themes. One exciting presentation of the theme is in "Quidditch Anthem". This energy continues through the score and surfaces in action cues like "Remember All Chase". Quieter moments in the score tend to be darker, such as "Chess Game" and "Malfoy Fight".

Two Hogwarts cues, "Hogwarts Neutral" and "Happy Hogwarts", present a secondary theme. Unfortunately, the iTunes album is a short 20 minutes long, and there is no time for either theme to be developed.  Considering Soule wrote over 50-minutes of music, this is a shame.  Additionally, the cues were written for a video game and are short, but meant to be looped during game play. A good example of this is "Remember All Chase", which seems to abruptly cut off unless one listens to the cue on repeat. This is necessary for certain parts of a game, but it makes it quite difficult to listen to as an album. Overall, Soule does a good job capturing the spirit of the Potter franchise, but aside from a few select cues, this album is a difficult, if enjoyable, listen.