The other element worth noting is the fair amount of Scottish-flavoured music, bagpipes first appearing (most surprisingly, first time you hear it) in “Downed Dragon” while it’s a very Hollywoodised sound and seems curious indeed in its placement in this film (about Vikings), I assume Powell drew his inspiration simply from the fact that much of the voice cast is Scottish – and in that context it certainly works very well in the film. With a hint of one of the themes from Shrek, there’s a more romantic melody used a few times too, most notably in “Romantic Flight” – this is effortlessly charming, very sweet and beautiful and its appearances are always welcome. The spectacular “Test Drive” sees it fly especially majestically.
Perhaps even more attractive is the soaring secondary theme used to represent flying, again in the finest of film music traditions. That theme forms the basis for many of the score’s most exciting moments (I especially love its thrilling use in “New Tail”, a cue which also features a gorgeous melody inspired by an old film composer favourite, the same Vaughan Williams which was pilfered by David Arnold for Stargate and James Horner for Troy). The score is anchored around several main themes, most of which appear in the first cue (“This is Berk”) – but its centrepiece is the swashbuckling main theme which, while not exactly recalling Erich Wolfgang Korngold in terms of style, certainly has the same fantastic free-spirited feel to it as those wonderful Golden Age adventure scores even while it clearly retains a very modern identity in the recording and performance.
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