Romantic Flight - How to Train Your Dragon - John Powell

Arranged for 25 Guitars by Danny Holland
http://www.dannyholland.org
Violin recorded by Marie Oka
http://marieoka.com/
Filming: Connor Holland
Video/Audio Production: Danny Holland
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I do not own the rights to any work by John Powell, this arrangement is purely a tribute to his work and will be removed if requested.
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Find me on Twitter @classicaldan2
www.dannyhollandguitar.com
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Via Wikipedia:
How to Train Your Dragon was composer John Powell's sixth collaboration with DreamWorks Animation. Powell had scored many of DreamWorks' previous films, but this was the first of DreamWorks' films where Powell helmed the score on his own (on his previous efforts with DreamWorks, he had collaborated with other composers such as Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer). Zimmer had long praised Powell's abilities, and on many occasions, asserted that he was the superior composer between them, thus firmly supporting Powell's first solo animation effort. For the score, Powell utilized many Celtic influences, employing instruments like the fiddle, bagpipes, dulcimer, pennywhistle, and even a harpsichord.

Icelandic singer Jónsi was brought on to write and record the song "Sticks & Stones", which plays during the end credits of the film.

In an interview with The Wrap's Steve Pond, Powell talked about his intent for the score:

I was certainly trying to get a bit more epic. I just felt the animation and the visuals were giving me a broader palette to play with. As a kid I remember watching The Vikings with Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas, and I always liked that score.

The directors were really very specific a lot of the time. They did want size and depth and emotion. They wanted a feeling of the Nordic musical past. You could say the symphonic musical past was Nielson, the Danish symphonist. Sibelius. Grieg to a certain extent, although I think he was a little bit more Germanic than he was Nordic.

Sibelius was the key. I studied a lot of Sibelius as a kid, and I've always adored his music. So that, plus it was great to have Jónsi do a song at the end of the movie, because I've always liked moody Icelandic band Sigur Rós. They were an influence as well, even though that seems paradoxical. But there is that in a few cues—heavy, dark guitar textures going on at the same time as large orchestration.

We looked at all the folk music from the Nordic areas. And I'm part Scottish and grew up with a lot of Scottish folk music, so that came into it a lot. And Celtic music was something that Jeffrey Katzenberg]felt had this very attractive quality to it, and a sweetness, that he thought would be wonderful for the film."