James Newton Howard Is The Latest Composer To Bring Music To The Potterverse

As director David Yates closed out the Harry Potter franchise films with the second installment of The Deathly Hallows, it came with an extremely bittersweet aftertaste. On the one hand, the sense of closure seemed fully formed - as in JK Rowling's books, Potter and his dearest friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger see off the threat of Voldemort once and for all, are all grown up and seeing their own children off to Hogwarts for a new generation. But upon realising this, the Potterverse as it is collectively known closed its astonishing adventures and wondrous creations, Rowling putting down the pen and putting Potter to bed. 

Fast forward to 2016, and not only do we have further stories in the play of Harry Potter & The Cursed Child but another film (with Yates occupying the director's chair once more) that fleshes out the Potterverse is on its way. Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them takes place in the 1920s as adventurer Newt Scamander scours the world in search of magical creatures. But it is a different beast entirely (pardon the pun) in the Potter canon; therefore there will be as much wonderment in store as there will be grateful familiarity to be immersed in the world once more. 

"There is a fair amount of electronics in the score also, supplying texture and broadening texture and providing complexity to certain set pieces."

One man new to this world, although not to crafting his own, is composer James Newton Howard. Having leant his musical weight to the scores of countless Hollywood blockbusters, most notably The Hunger Games trilogy and the first two films of Christopher Nolan's Batman reboot, Howard is more than adept at world-building, creating music as seminal as the films they score. Yet he still had his work cut out for him, seeing as Fantastic Beasts is both a period piece and a fantasy film.

"I had a strong theory about that from the beginning," Howard stresses. "Occasionally the music embraces the time, but mostly it's just about telling the story, which is a timeless process. There is a character Jacob (played by Dan Fogler - a "No-Maj", the era's version of a "Muggle") whose music when he is on screen is something that sounds like jazz in the 1920s. But other than that I felt that the music could be anything." 

Once those shackles had been thrown off, Howard set out to create an entire environment that is separate from the Potter films, yet with touchstones of John Williams' score that became synonymous with Rowling's creations. "I had a couple of chats with David in LA (where Howard lives) at the beginning of the process, then I began by composing suites of music, ten-minute segments based solely on my reading of the script, with ideas and sounds that I felt worked with the movie. But I really didn't know because I hadn't seen the film at all, so I sent them through to David. Little by little I would be sent some film, and I began creating demos in my studio, mock-ups of what the score might sound like, email them back and forth to London. This went on for seven months. 

"[The process] remained completely open to me," Howard continues. "If you think about it narratively, it's a story that takes place seventy years before Harry Potter comes into existence, so the storytelling of playing Hedwig's Theme over something that doesn't exist doesn't work. It's over the logo at the beginning of the credits which I think is great, reminding you we are in a Potter wizarding world, and then there are a couple winks and nods throughout the movie just to keep things interesting. It is also a very orchestral score which was the vocabulary of John Williams, and has been a legacy and tradition of all the Harry Potter movies. There is a fair amount of electronics in the score also, supplying texture and broadening texture and providing complexity to certain set pieces, as well as quite a lot of choral music - I like bringing voices into this world. Hopefully then what will dignify the score will be the quality of it, not the form." 

Howard has been doing film scores for four decades now, therefore knowing the fickle nature of the Hollywood film industry. He has become savvy in working with people that allow him to work to his own tune. That's not to say he has his eye on future forays into the Potterverse with all its idiosyncrasies. "I work a lot with repeat people, who are friends, and it tends to be like a marriage. So if there are a couple of bad [films] you stick with it and hope the next will be a good one. I proactively chased this one because I thought I could bring something interesting to it. Hopefully there will be sequels, hopefully I will be involved. Many times people have taken my scores and placed them in as temporary scores and I'm left thinking "Wow, that sounds better there than what I originally did with it!" Or when someone syncs in my music five seconds late, which is a mistake, but it then does something new and interesting to the narrative on the screen. In music there are so many happy accidents...it can be quite magical."