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Howl’s Moving Castle / Soundtracks

Acclaimed animation studio Studio Ghibli present a typically gorgeous edition of the music from their 2004 film Howl’s Moving Castle. The score, which was written by Studio Ghibli’s go-to composer Joe Hisaishi, is as lush and ornate as orchestral film music gets. Anyone familiar with Hisaishi’s work for Studio Ghibli will be aware that his musical style draws heavily on great Romantic composers like Antonín Dvořák, “golden age of Hollywood” orchestrators such as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and the jazz-tinged fantasies of Maurice Ravel. All of those sounds are present and correct here, with Hisaishi alchemising them into stunning works like the iconic main theme ‘The Promise Of The World’ - a song sung here by Chieko Baisho, the actress who voices the lead character Sophie in the Japanese edition of Howl’s Moving Castle.

Howl’s Moving Castle / Image Symphonic Suite

This record presents the music of the Howl’s Moving Castle symphonic suite, a set of compositions made by longtime Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi to accompany his score for the studio’s 2004 film. Recorded by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Howl’s Moving Castle suite is a condensed hit of many of the best things about both the movie’s score and Hisaishi’s compositional style in general. As well as Hisaishi’s typically swashbuckling, jazz-tinged style of Romantic orchestral music, there is also a faint air of surrealism to much of the music here which joins the dots between Howl’s Moving Castle and Disney’s Fantasia - a fitting link, given how both are animated films that deal in magic and mystery.