How to Train Your Dragon by John Powell (review)

Rarely does one find a published copy of a film’s score, particularly from a film as recent as 2010. The film How to Train Your Dragon received critical acclaim when it was first released with many reviewers acknowledging the role of the score in the film’s success. The score by composer John Powell, received its own recognition with an Oscar nomination for Best Score and winning Film Score of the Year from the IFMCA Awards. The score is written for full orchestra with a variety of folk and non-Western instruments. The published score is great for anyone studying film music, presenting a unique opportunity to dive deep into a newer score without having to rely on one’s ear and assist in widening the base of film music research. The lack of scholarly research on Powell, limited to only a composition dissertation chapter by Jennifer Dirkes (“Synchretic Analysis and Storyboard Scores: The Musical Rhythm of Filmic Elements,” [PhD diss., University of California-Los Angeles, 2017]) and my own Master’s thesis (“Thematic Development in John Powell’s Score for How to Train Your Dragon (2010),” [MM thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2020]) leaves much room for exploration of Powell and the How to Train Your Dragon franchise.

The How to Train Your Dragon score is unique to Omni Music Publishing’s collection as both the only score by Powell and the only score for an animated film, helping to diversify the emerging “canon” brought about by the limited publication of film scores. The published score will allow more scholars to explore Powell’s thematic technique and other aspects of his composition style that have not yet been researched. The thematically driven nature of the score that is in many ways more akin to the classic scores of John Williams, than other scores of the same year such as Oscar nominees The Social Network (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) and Inception (Hans Zimmer) is possibly why Omni chose this score for publication alongside well-known composers like James Horner, Bernard Herrmann, and Elmer Bernstein. The publication was successful enough that Omni is set to publish the score for the second How to Train Your Dragon film in fall of 2021. Apart from Batman and Batman Returns (Danny Elfman) this is the only other series of scores Omni has published to date. Pending the success of the second score, I’m sure they will consider releasing the score for the third film as well, giving scholars the opportunity to study the entire franchise more easily.

The publication is a beautiful edition, clearly laid out for ease of study. Abridged film credits and a relatively short introductory “analysis” of some main themes and where they appear in the score are included. The film credits page mentions only those involved in the music production apart from the directors and main voice actors. This page is helpful to see everyone involved in the music production besides Powell, including a long list of orchestrators and arrangers, reminding us that although Powell will get credit for every choice made in the film’s music, it is not likely that he made every small decision, an important thing to note when writing about film music. Unfortunately, there is no indication of which orchestrator or arranger worked on which parts of the score. One may assume the names are listed by amount of contribution since they are not in alphabetical order, but there is no confirmation of this idea. At the bottom of the same page are the “book credits” showing that Powell and others from his production company, 5 Cat Studios, were involved in creating this publication. Timothy Rodier from Omni Music Publishing is also listed and credited with the layout and design of the book, but unfortunately there is no indication of how much input Powell had in the publication’s production and could possibly be listed as a courtesy or simply because the publisher went through...