Overview

As one of the most popular literary series in modern memory, it was always a given that Harry Potter would see a flurry of media adaptations from movies to games. And sure enough, Electronic Arts put out a game version to coincide with the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to cinemas worldwide. Its reviews were middling, much like the film's, playing best to fans of the book and young children.

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For the music, EA turned to Jeremy Soule, who was in the midst of a career renaissance. After his well-received score to Icewind Dale in 2000, Soule was suddenly a hot commodity, scoring dozens of RPGs and fantasy games in the following years. Due to rights issues, Soule wasn't allowed to use any of John Williams' music from the big-screen Potter; while his music tries to exist in the same world of whimsical fantasy, the melodies were all his own.

The official album opens with a resounding rendition of Soule's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Theme," a piece that seems equally inspired by Williams and Edvard Grieg over its bombastic first half. Oddly, the theme doesn't appear much in the rest of the album, with Soule preferring to rely on a consistent tone rather than thematic development. The same atmosphere of overbearing wonder returns in several other tracks, most notably "Story Book," which adds a light choir to provide an undercurrent of menace, and the concluding "Happy Hogwarts."

Track that accompany scenes of mystery and suspense are less engaging, with the dissonant "Dark Hogwarts" and "Devil's Snare" falling prey to Soule's tendency toward troubled ambience. Action cues like "Malfoy Fight" or "Troll Chase" similarly fail to convey the magic from the better pieces, with plenty of percussive hits but not much depth. The balance of music is such, though, that the weaker music is generally balanced out by the better, with strong statements of whimsy and wonder prevailing over more pedestrian action music.

Unsurprisingly, Soule's music went unreleased when the game came out in 2001. However, in late 2006 EA unexpectedly released portions of Soule's Potter scores as digital downloads via iTunes. Unfortunately, the iTunes release of Sorceror's Stone is deeply flawed. While the sound quality is better than that of the rips, the tracks are short and unlooped, leading to jarring transitions more befitting an amateurish gamerip than an offical product. The track titles were apparently pulled from Soule's original files, leading to odd situations where a "part 2" is on the album with no corresponding "part 1". At 21 minutes, the official product is quite short and missing a considerable portion of the music composed for the game, including some of its best tracks.

Summary

In the end, Soule acquitted himself well with a score that has some considerable highlights. But in many ways it's music that serves as a blueprint for what was to come in his later Potter scores — and, indeed, music from Sorceror's Stone would be tracked into all future Potter games, even those scored by James Hannigan. Soule fans should definitely seek it out, though the album's drawbacks make it harder to recommend. A bit of audio editing is required to restore the music to its full potential.