Lord Of The Rings Score Composer
Nina Zahra
The music of The Lord of the Rings film series was composed, orchestrated, conducted and produced by Howard Shore between 2000 and 2004 to support Peter Jackson's film trilogy based on J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel of the same name. It is notable in terms of length of the score, the size of the staged forces, the unusual instrumentation, the featured soloists, the multitude of musical styles and the number of recurring musical themes used.
Shore wrote many hours of music for the trilogy, effectively scoring the film for its entire length. Over 13 hours of the music (including various alternate takes) have been released across various formats. Shore intended the score to be operatic and to have "a sense of age".[1] He made use of an immense ensemble including a large symphony orchestra (principally, the London Philharmonic Orchestra), multiple instrumental "bands", various choirs, and vocal and instrumental soloists, requiring an ensemble ranging from 230 to 400 musicians.
The series music became the most successful of Shore's career, earning three Oscars, two Golden Globes, and three Grammys, among other nominations. Some of his themes or leitmotifs (like the Shire theme) became individually popular. The music has attracted the interest of musicologists and Tolkien scholars. It is performed by choirs and orchestras around the world as symphony pieces, concert suites and live to-projection concerts. Shore invited the musicologist Doug Adams to observe the composition process and to document it in what became the 2010 book The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films. It identifies the many themes of the score, and describes how these are used in each of the scenes of the film trilogy.
The New Zealand film director Peter Jackson created a film series based on the book. The three films were shot simultaneously and released between 2001 and 2003, to popular acclaim. Together the three films grossed over $2.9 billion worldwide.[5]
The Canadian composer and conductor Howard Shore composed, orchestrated, conducted and produced the film trilogy's music.[6] The filmmakers had considered the American composer James Horner[7] and the Polish composer Wojciech Kilar for the role.[8] Shore visited the set in 1999, and composed a version of the Shire theme and Frodo's Theme before Jackson began shooting.[6] In August 2000 he visited the set again, and watched the assembly cuts of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King.[9] In the music, Shore included over 50 leitmotifs to represent the different characters, cultures and places. There are for instance multiple leitmotifs just for the hobbits and the Shire. Although part of the score for the first film was recorded in Wellington, New Zealand, virtually all of the trilogy's score was recorded in Watford Town Hall and mixed at Abbey Road Studios in London.[10] Jackson planned to advise the score for six weeks each year in London, though for The Two Towers he stayed for twelve.[11] Shore composed a main theme for the Fellowship[a] rather than many different character themes, and the Fellowship's highs and lows are depicted during the series. Individual themes were composed to represent different cultures.[12]
For the soundtrack, the score was primarily played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, ranging from 93 to 120 players throughout the recording. There are contributions by London Voices, the London Oratory School Schola boy choir, and artists such as Ben Del Maestro, Sheila Chandra, Enya, Rene Fleming, James Galway, Annie Lennox and Emilana Torrini. The actors Billy Boyd, Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto (extended cuts only for the latter two) and Peter Jackson (for a single tam-tam sound in the second film) also contributed. Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens wrote the libretto; David Salo translated it into Tolkien's constructed languages. The third film's end song, "Into the West", was a tribute to a young filmmaker Jackson and Walsh befriended named Cameron Duncan, who died of cancer in 2003.[12]
The film score for The Lord of the Rings incorporates extensive vocal music blended with the orchestral arrangements. The great majority of the lyrics used in the libretto are in the invented languages of Middle-earth, representing the various cultures and races in Tolkien's writings. These languages include Quenya and Sindarin for the Elves, Adnaic and Rohirric for Men, and Khuzdul for the Dwarves. The score follows Tolkien's use of Old English as an analogue for Rohirric, while English is used as an analogue for the Common Tongue.[21] Some of these languages had been developed extensively by Tolkien, while others were extrapolated by the linguist David Salo based on the limited samples of vocabulary and linguistic style available.[22]
For example, the "Footsteps of Doom" song, in Sindarin, is heard in the "Prologue: One Ring to Rule Them All" introductory chapter of the film trilogy, at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring. To a spoken narration by Cate Blanchett as the Elf-lady[d] Galadriel, scenes of a long and violent history unfurl on screen, overlaid with several of Shore's themes, including "Lothlrien" for the Elves,[e] "Threat of Mordor",[f] "Sauron", "Evil of the Ring", "Ringwraith",[g] and "Footsteps of Doom" for the forces of the Dark Lord; "Fall of Men", "Gondor in Decline",[h] and "Minas Tirith"[i] for the human allies of the Elves; and throughout the Prologue, the "History of the Ring" theme as the One Ring passes from one owner to another.[24]
The libretto was derived from several sources, including songs and poems written by Tolkien, phrases from the screenplay (often sung against the corresponding dialogue or recitation) as well as original and adapted material from Shore and from screenwriters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and others, all translated by Salo while stressing good choral sounds.[25]
The score includes a series of songs, some diegetic, some not. A selection of them, with the associated underscore, were released as single CD releases and music videos featuring footage from the film and the production, prior to the release of the entire soundtracks.[26]
Some of the diegetic songs were not composed by Shore, but he orchestrated and conducted the orchestral accompaniment and even reprised some of them in his symphony.[28] Thus, Bilbo's farewell party sees the hobbits celebrating and dancing vigorously to music by Plan 9, a group who had long worked with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. Shore commented that their music had "the right feel" for the scene, and liked the difference from his own music.[27]
A few of the diegetic songs are settings of poems by Tolkien, interspersed in the text of The Lord of the Rings.[29][30] Among these is "The Road Goes Ever On", sung softly by Ian McKellen playing Gandalf arriving in Hobbiton in his farm cart, to a melody by Walsh.[31]
Some of the non-diegetic songs, too, were by other composers; for instance, "May It Be" and Anron (the theme for Aragorn and Arwen[32]) were composed and sung by the Irish singer and songwriter of modern Celtic music Enya.[33] "The Funeral of Thodred" in The Two Towers was composed by Plan 9 and performed by the actor Miranda Otto, playing owyn; the words are not Tolkien's.[34]
For the music to be played as the six-movement The Lord of the Rings Symphony, over 200 musicians and singers are required on stage.[35] To suit the complex narrative, with its contrasting cultures, Shore wrote music in different styles for each of the peoples of Middle-earth. For the Elves, the music is mainly women's voices, Rivendell[j] designed to appear as a timeless place of learning, while Lothlrien was by intention "mystical and exotic".[e] In contrast, the Orcs of Isengard were accompanied by a 5-beat rhythm on steel plates, Japanese drums, and metal chains, giving a harsh industrial effect.[36] For Gollum, a corrupted Hobbit in two minds with a strange way of moving, Shore used the cimbalom, an instrument like a medieval hammered dulcimer, giving a trembling feeling.[37] For some concerts conducted by Shore, images of Middle-earth by the films' concept artists Alan Lee and John Howe were projected while the music was played.[38]
There are over 50 leitmotifs in the music; the symphony begins with the rising and falling "The History of the Ring" theme[b] with a "breathlike pattern to give the Ring a sense of consciousness and purpose". Shore comments that this could be taken as the central theme of the score.[39] The "Fellowship" theme appears when the nine heroes, the Fellowship of the Ring, first come together at the Council of Elrond at Rivendell; the theme splinters when the Fellowship breaks apart, and gradually reassembles as the Fellowship makes progress with its task.[40] The symphony is edited to concert length from over 11 hours of film music.[41] The symphony has a 19th century structure to give the audience a sense of history, hinting at the great lapse of time since the Third Age of Middle-earth. Shore, with Jackson and Walsh, wanted it to feel like opera.[42] To represent the evolution of characters, the themes change; thus, the Hobbits' tin whistle is replaced by a flute when they return to the Shire.[43] That return, to save the Shire, is a central theme of the story, accompanied by the Hobbits' theme.[44]
Live to Projection is a series where The Lord of the Rings films (their soundtrack limited to dialogue and sound effects) are projected while the music is performed live in sync with the films. It is conducted by Ludwig Wicki [de] and Erik Eino Ochsner and was performed around the world, including Switzerland, Australia and the United States.[45] The concerts, which consist of multiple movements,[46] restore unused or alternate sections of the soundtrack (where other concerts of this kind for other films repeat the final film music) and even required Shore to edit several bars of the music, including a feature entr'acte suite.[47]
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