John Williams - Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2LP)

The third Harry Potter film changed the weather of the series, and John Williams changed the music to match it. The Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban soundtrack landed in May 2004, and you can feel Alfonso Cuarón’s cooler, moodier London in every bar. Williams, still drawing on the DNA of Hedwig’s Theme, pulls the palette toward woodwinds, choir and rustic colours. It earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score the following year, which tells you how strongly this one connected beyond the fanbase.

Spin it from the top and you get a familiar prelude. Hedwig’s Theme returns in “Lumos!,” not as a retread but as a curtain lift, setting up a score that wanders down cobblestoned lanes rather than broad fantasy boulevards. The charm of this album is in how it moves. It is less about a single tune you can hum for days and more about a small constellation of ideas that fit the film’s crooked clocks and whispery corridors.

“Double Trouble” is the calling card. Williams raids Shakespeare’s Macbeth for the lyrics and hands them to a children’s choir, with recorders and drum tabor colouring the edges. It sounds like a schoolyard spell, which is the point, and the cue became a signature of the film’s on screen choir scene. That medieval flavour threads through the score in smart ways, often as a second voice under the orchestra rather than the whole picture. It gives the world an older smell, like parchment or candle wax.

“A Window to the Past” is the heart. The melody, led by a plaintive recorder and supported by strings, sits somewhere between lullaby and lament. It is unmistakably Williams, but quieter in its sense of wonder, more fragile. In a series built on big swells, this one breathes. You hear the distance between childhood and what comes next, and it lands even if you are not filing away leitmotifs in your head. Film music diehards will tell you it is one of his great late themes.

On the other end of the street is “The Knight Bus,” which barrels in like a purple jazz combo. Drum kit, brass stabs, bass walking like it is late for the last train. It is raucous, almost cartoonish in its timing, and a reminder that Williams can still surprise you after decades of set pieces. “Buckbeak’s Flight” takes a different kind of air. Strings crest and fall, woodwinds skitter, and the orchestra seems to stretch its wings as much as the hippogriff does. If you want the pure exhilaration this album can offer, that is your cut.

Part of the pleasure here is the recording itself. Tracked in London with a full orchestra and choir, the performances have the bloom and bite you want from Williams at this stage. There is detail in the percussion, real wood in the winds, space around the voices. On a good pressing of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban vinyl, the dynamic range makes itself known in those quiet, candlelit passages and then lifts you clean off the floor when the orchestra opens up. If you are crate digging for John Williams vinyl, this one earns a home next to the big hitters.

The album plays well as an album too. It is sequenced to give you a narrative arc without leaning on the film’s plot points. You can drop the needle anywhere and still find a movement that resolves with some grace. The closer “Mischief Managed!” wraps several motifs into a concert suite that leaves a warm afterglow. That is good programming, and it is why fans return to this soundtrack even if they know the scenes by heart.

Culturally, Prisoner of Azkaban is often cited as the turning point where the series grows into its shoes. The score follows suit. It respects the magical sparkle that got everyone in the door, then nudges the music toward adolescence. Critics noticed at the time, and the Oscar nod cemented its standing among John Williams albums on vinyl and CD alike. It is not the loudest Potter score, but it might be the most lived in.

If you are chasing a copy in Australia, keep an eye on local shops that specialise in film music and the better curated bins for vinyl records Australia wide. A good Melbourne record store will know exactly why this one matters and may even let you preview a side. For those browsing late at night, you can always buy John Williams records online, though it is worth asking about the pressing. However you get it, this is a soundtrack that rewards a quiet room and a little patience. It is Williams showing his craft in softer focus, and it still casts a proper spell.