威廉斯与导演柯朗在《哈利波特3:阿兹卡班的囚徒》制片过程中做出两大音乐创作上的改变,首先是选择以儿童唱诗班的合声欢迎霍格华兹的学童返校,然后将‘哈利波特’主题乐章之"Hedwig's Theme"融入莎翁名剧‘马克白’的论述精神,来个主题乐章的变装游戏,而乐章中弥漫的中古世纪色彩就成为彩绘‘哈利波特’的奇幻魔法世界的基调,然后再将此一主题基调分别透过19世纪义大利歌舞/音乐剧创作家Gioacchino Rossini的音乐形式、欣喜若狂的big band爵士音调与20世纪的当代音乐。
年过70的威廉斯忽然变成一个淘气的大孩子,大玩古典音乐与当代音乐的奇想游戏,无论是加重黑色成分的主题变装乐章"Lumos! (Hedwig's Theme)"、惊奇且华丽的"Aunt Marge's Waltz"、big band爵士乐风疯狂着魔的"The Knight Bus"、借重儿童合声表现紧张气氛的"Double Trouble"颇有凌驾‘外星人’中E.T.飞越月亮情节乐章神采的"Buckbeak's Flight"、笛声悠然神伤的田园小品乐章"A Window To The Past",大师可是卯起来玩得尽兴,而大师当然也没忘记秀秀精湛的鼓/管号乐/铃声追逐戏法(尤以第8轨、第16轨最为出色),更别提编曲形式的交叠、变化了。
John Williams, when working within the realms of science fiction or fantasy, somehow manages to convey the same level of magic and whimsy inherent in Tchaikovsky's Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. For the first two Harry Potter films he employed an instantly memorable theme augmented by a series of elegant yet uninspired action motifs that while effortless were, like the films themselves, merely adequate. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban finds the Oscar-winning composer swelled with a creative giddiness that hasn't been present for some time, resulting in a piece of work that's both fully realized and endlessly unpredictable. Beginning with the familiar celesta cue that launches each installment, Williams seems poised to deliver a solid reworking of the previous scores, but that sentiment is abruptly quelled by the jazzy, big-band one-two punch of "Aunt Margie's Waltz" and "The Knight Bus" — the latter borrows liberally from his outstanding Mancini-esque.work on Catch Me If You Can. What follows is an intoxicating fusion of medieval-meets-Rossini-meets-Arvo Pärt mayhem that recalls his Close Encounters of the Third Kind.heyday. Director Alfonso Cuaron's youthful enthusiasm has had an effect on Williams, and nowhere is that more apparent than on "Double Trouble," a devious choral piece cleverly built around the prose of Shakespeare's Macbeth and devilishly sung by the London Oratory School Schola Children's Choir. It's this melody, culled from bits and pieces of "Hedwig's Theme" from The Sorcerer's Stone, that permeates the entire score. Williams has a deep understanding of the orchestra, and his love of woodwinds is on glorious display throughout the work's entirety, but they never overplay — as was often the case in the previous two films — even the thunderous Kodo-style tympanis that introduce the Hypogriff "Buckbeak" are merely exclamation points announcing the arrival of one of the composer's most beautiful melodies. The Prisoner of Azkaban is thought by many to be the finest book in the series, and it would seem that both the director and the composer agree. Like Cuaron and Rowling, Williams meets his characters — children especially — on common ground, allowing them to laugh, suffer, fail, and succeed on their own terms. He may be the author and director's emotional conduit, but he's a master storyteller as well.