Okay, of course it's already appeared on my livejournal (which, by the way, is NOT responsible for blog murder), and so I'm reposting here.
Enjoy!
This is a complete and very gushy expounding on why I love the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack. The piece I chose to look at is the finale piece (Coming Back Around), which plays during the last scene of the movie.
Simple movie summary: A dragon-slaying Viking settlement called Berk changes its mind about dragons after wimpy main character Hiccup secretly nurtures an injured one (Toothless) with a broken half-tail. During the movie, the pair develops a symbiosis in which Toothless cannot fly unless Hiccup is riding and controlling its replacement tail with his foot. Epic final battle with the mother dragon (the small dragons terrorise Berk at her ruthless dictation), in which Hiccup wins, but loses a leg. So now both have lost...argh, I can't do this part justice. Watch it yourself.
Anyway...here is the video:
0:00 - 0:27:
Scene: Hiccup gets up to leave the house, being praised on the way (I think).
Unrecognised theme (?) Begins with a few harp glissandos, which always have the effect of magic-ising and lifting the mood, especially when they are upwards with no semitones (i.e. pentatonic!). Quickly rises into what appears to be a compound time rhythm.
0:28 - 0:40
Scene: Hiccup sees his fellow citizens playing with the dragons.
A 3/4 reprise of the theme that was first introduced, so beautifully, in Forbidden Friendship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CJ96LGGP6w). In all ways, this scene seems to recall the day when Hiccup himself first met Toothless--the day he realised that dragons weren't really enemies. The same thing is happening here, all over again. <3
0:41 - 0:47
Scene: I think he's seeing Toothless and his destroyed replacement tail.
A transition with no resolving cadences. The strings and flute carry the music forward as if floating on, and the music is somewhat expectant and a little doubtful, but completely joyous.
0:48 - 1:01
Scene: Toothless helps Hiccup walk a little (I think). ;_;
The solo violin recalls the calm musical theme that symbolises everyday life in Berk, and it's absolutely beautiful when you think of how amazingly poetic the mundane act of walking can be.
1:01 - 1:08
Melody shifts to the flute, which reminds one of the more joyous scenes of the first half, where Hiccup was suddenly becoming popular in school. :D
1:09 - 1:17
THIS is where the awesomeness begins. He straps the new tail flap to Toothless, and hooks the control belt onto his own artificial leg replacement. Sounds so silly in text, but really it was the bit that made me cry...
Scene: Here he is being given his gift, for defeating the mother dragon: a new artificial tail to replace Toothless' old one. And it's professionally-made.
The music is, again, a reprise of the musical theme that represents Hiccup and Toothless' first meeting--but so much more glorious, with the bagpipes replacing the softer vibraphone from the initial version.
1:19 - 1:35
This is the theme that began the movie, and came again in full force during Hiccup and Toothless' first flight. Moving, and so grand, with that slightly-swinging drumbeat. Sigh...
1:35 - 1:56
Actually a continuation of the above theme, but this is the single tune that brought the entire soundtrack to the next level of awesome. I shall have to go deeper into this tune next post.
1:56 - 2:03
Four-bar phrase of the meeting theme, again! <3<3
2:03 - 2:41
Scene: The flight begins, and I am crying in my theatre seat. This is where the reprise of the introductory narration comes in, and it fits SO WELL. Because the melody in the background isthe same too!
The flight theme returns, in the brass this time, with a contrapuntal flute melody that just positively soars. And a march drumbeat that will forever break my heart with love, because it brings such purpose to the most beautiful movie soundtrack theme I've ever heard.
The movie opens and closes with the very same melodic theme--so different, one gentle and one brilliant--but inherently the very same. Like every good story told, the end links to the beginning--and at once we are brought to consider all that has happened since the story began, how much has changed, how much is still the same, how much will always be. The narration makes it even better.
