Note that the rating for this review is based on the score and not the actual release.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey***1/2

HOWARD SHORE

Watertower Records 39372

Disc One: 13 tracks – 52:06

Disc Two: 13 tracks – 56:04

Also available in an “extended” 2-disc edition.

Peter Jackson returns this year with the story that started it all, The Hobbit.  Of course, he has seen fit to make this another 3-film extravaganza that may collapse under its own self-importance.  As a fan of LOTR, this reviewer certainly is looking forward to revisiting this classic tale along with a legion of fans.  Howard Shore returns fortunately to provide a musical sound continuity to this earlier masterpiece.

A word first though about Watertower’s ridiculous decision to release two "different" versions of the score.  Reviewers received both a download of the “extended” version as well as a hard copy of the “regular” version being discussed here.  As one can tell from the track times, this 2-disc set certainly had plenty of room for another hour of music between the two discs.  It makes this release plainly redundant and useless.  So, seek out the expanded edition which is more appropriately filled out.  A two-disc set of music for the “casual” listener seems like a better result than what New Line did with the previous scores in the trilogy, but really with so much repeated musical themes it might have been best to include some of the highlights in a single disc, and then the extended edition.  Far be it from anyone to wish less of the score on people, but one has to wonder just who this release is for anyway?  Fans of this series will want “all” the music.  The extended edition includes “extended” cues of 7 tracks along with 5 additional tracks.  Three “exclusive bonuses” are at the end of disc two which makes no sense at all.  Why not just put them in narrative order?  And why release this 2-disc set with the “regular” one at all.  My sense is that there is a future “expanded” edition to come in the future at any rate. 

From the start of “My Dear Frodo” we are instantly reminded of the lush music of this fantast world.  The music has that unique fantasy sound that mixes Romantic gestures with modal harmonic support.  Familiar themes appear throughout the score to set place and character.  The Shire music is most prominent as things get underway.  Other new themes and leitmotivs appear as the music progresses.  There are some ethereal moments for choir, that also sound as if they are being supported by electronic sounds, that also darkens at times.  The music feels a bit more intimate at the start with a sense of folk dance and just a little humor as Bilbo is met with many unexpected guests.  Something else quite fascinating in Shore’s music this time around, is the amount of expressiveness that is created through a variety of crescendo and decrescendo moments.  Before, these effects tended to be created within a single thematic idea, but they have now been adapted across the orchestra as a whole.

Highlights include the Celtic-Middle Ages like “Misty Mountains” song.  This setting is somehow both creepy and not a complicated setting lending it that sense of “ancient” music passed down through generations that is necessary to communicate the timelessness of the piece.  It is as if it has always been there and is not some new creation.  “The Adventure Begins” is one of the first generally “different” cues in the score with a shift in orchestral texture that again relates to a dance-like action cue.  It also is less moody, picking up the tempo a bit to jolt the listener into the story perhaps.  The addition of boy’s choir adds appropriately creepy sounds in “Radagast the Brown.”  Disc One though ends rather abruptly after “Warg-scouts.”  We are back to Rivendell with “The Hidden Valley” with its gorgeous music and ethereal chorus in the opening to disc two.  Here, Shore piles up some denser close harmonies which move into a more action-like musical sequence.  Some fans will be interested in hearing how the thematic music for “the ring” appears when we first discover it in Gollum’s possession (“Riddles in the Dark” though this is not terribly interesting).  This sequence is the pivot point for what will happen much later, though its value within the narrative of The Hobbit is not as apparent in the story itself and the music certainly does not let on either.  “Brass Buttons” turns out to be a rather interesting track that puts male choral “chanting” against some of the battle-like music and a host of dissonant harmonies.  Most interesting here is the brass writing that features fanfares, flutters and splashes of sound that make for an otherwise exciting cue.  “A Good Omen” seems to be one of the big climactic moments musically in this collection upon which the film seems to drive and we here snippets of music that will appear in the later trilogy scores as well.  It will be interesting to see what reaction will be to “Song of the Lonely Mountain.”  On its own, there is very little wrong with the folk-music tinged Celtic sound featuring Neil Finn.  But it’s character sounds like something from a 1970s movie, and a bad one at that which is out of character for the music that surrounds it.  It feels like the one serious misstep.  As it precedes “Dreaming of Bag End” it also makes little sense in where it is placed on the album here as it takes us out of the world Shore has so well crafted.  As an end credit role it would work fine.  The last score cue placed here feels like an afterthought.  The song would work best as a final track.    

While one can give a thorough “thumbs down” to Watertower’s release choices here, the score is still Shore at his best.  The idea of a “standalone” cue is much harder to discern here as so much of the score is well-integrated as a composite whole which rarely seems to be wasting time.  This is a style of music and approach that manages to stay within the LOTR soundworld the way Williams did in the Star Wars prequels.  The music flows effortlessly and seamlessly from one track to the next, apart from the penultimate song on disc two, allowing listeners to take the journey musically whenever they wish.

So, bottom line is more of the same musical universe and check the track listing to make sure you have all the music you want to pay for this time.

Here is take one of what will likely be a future updated release of music taken from the first four films of the popular Twilight film series.  For Silva's  present release, their house orchestra, the City of Prague Philharmonic, tackles this music featuring conductors James Fitzpatrick and Evan Jolly on the podium.

It certainly makes for a nice bookend that Carter Burwell’s music opens and closes the disc with seven selections from Twilight and five from Breaking Dawn.  The disc opens with a strong performance of “Edward at Her Bed/Bella’s Lullabye” though with some tentative high string playing.  The latter melodic idea casts its shadow across the selections here.  One is reminded in the selections from Twilight how intimate Burwell’s score is for this film with delicate scoring often quite exposed in its simplicity and the composer’s unique harmonic choices.  The addition of electric guitar textures alternating with piano passages works well here.  Some electronic ideas can be discerned in these recordings adding extra texture to tracks such as “I Know What You Are.”  In the selections from Breaking Dawn, Burwell continues to build on his material quite well.  “Love Death Birth” has moments that recall his score for Miller’s Crossing with its Irish-like melodic scoring and a new thematic idea that rises up.  Interestingly, some of the menace of the music also has a decidedly Shore-like sense to it at times and like it belongs to an indie-Western in other places (“A Nova Vida”).  “A Wolf Stands Up” is the first semi-action cue in the collection here which starts off with pulsing percussion that moves under a stop-and-start melodic idea.  Oddly, the most horror-music like moment occurs in “You Kill Her You Kill Me,” the final track which sets up the story for the next film.  While it makes for a fitting close,  it is a bit jarring after the lulling music which essentially preceded it.

Alexander Desplat’s score for New Moon essentially fills out the arpeggiated ideas of the first film with a couple of unique melodies heard in the title track which is quite good here.  One is struck how Desplat’s music honors Burwell’s approach and layers in his own style for this score.  The orchestra responds well to this slightly larger scale approach.  The music though tends to be rather repetitive over the six selections here even for Desplat with hope that at least something would happen to break up the monochromatic feel of the music.  (Of course, there are some who would say this is the fault of the story and film itself.)  The music choices are mostly of the melancholic romantic mode with more of Bella’s theme in fuller sound and with a bit more unsatisfied longing.  A piano performance of “The Meadow” simply repeats the previous music traversed in a fine performance by Stanislav Gallin if the data received is correct.

The choice of the piano selection makes for a fine segue into Howard Shore’s “Compromise/Bella’s Theme” from the third film, “Eclipse.”  From the opening bars, it sounds as if Shore reconfigured some of the intervals and musical gestures slightly to create his own thematic material.  Pianist Evan Jolly tackles the music from this score that continues in that dreamy new age sound.  Shore keeps up the arpeggiated idea with some lyric lines carrying thematic material over the top.  “Jasper” is the most like a Shore musical work with scoring and harmonic shifts reminiscent of the composer’s other fantasy work.  It is certainly the closest to overwrought danger that appears musically here.

This is a fairly good compilation presenting key music from the series, though by nature the album tends to be a rather melancholic collection.  It does allow for a rather quick comparison of compositional styles from three quite different composers.  Both Despat and Shore manage to stay true to their own styles while reusing some of Burwell’s primary material.  Fans of the scores will be interested in this release with its representation of music in smaller chunks.