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Howard Shore points out
that whilst J.R.R. Tolkien had 14 years in which
to write the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, the music had
to be done in only four. It's some achievement for the
composer, who has been working non-stop on this music,
taking only Christmas and New Year for holidays,
and the material is such that he is busily arranging a
symphony to incorporate music from all three films,
not to mention writing accompaniments for the DVD
extras. All in all this makes up for a whopping seven
hours' worth of material, carefully orchestrated and
expansively performed.
As you'd expect, The Return Of The
King draws heavily on themes from the previous two
soundtracks, with most of the characters introduced by
now. New to the scene, however, is the vile monster
Shelob, given appropriately discordant music as she
attacks and pursues Frodo and Sam - not one for the
arachnophobics in the cinema!
With the contrast
between good and evil growing more vivid, there's a
savage depiction of Minas Morgul in the heart of
Mordor, and a weird, disquieting sound picture of
Cirith Ungol. Hope abounds in the shape of the Ride Of
The Rohirrim, and the city of Minas Tirith is made to
sound as majestic as it looks on screen.
Twilight & Shadow
contains an example of a technique Shore uses to great
effect, as he often builds a piece of music with more
and more orchestration and intensity until it suddenly
rushes over a cliff, suspended with choral voices
conveying a kind of weightlessness.
There are more vocal
contributions to this final part, with Ren�e Fleming
lending a gorgeous soprano voice to The End Of All
Things, and Annie Lennox a curious but successful
choice for the end credits.
The crowning movement, The
Return Of The King, arrives at a relative calm as the
end is nigh, the battle fought, with a recap of many
of the principal themes used thus far. Again these are
expansively orchestrated yet are quite folksy when
depicting the Shire and when the Hobbits are on the
scene.
Shore's highly dramatic
soundtrack stands up as a piece in its own right, with
or without the film, and the classical sensibilities,
together with a real sense of drama and occasion, augur
well for the projected symphony. It's a tremendous
achievement, one to put on a par with John
Williams and his music for Star Wars.
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