If you are a child of the 1970s, we all thought the 2-disc set of Star Wars was a big deal. The later "complete" recordings on CD would not come for almost 20 years after the inital release of that classic score. So for all of you young fans of Howard Shore's music for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy it is important to see just how amazing a 4-disc set of the complete score really is at all. This is the final "complete" edition following in the two previous superb releases. It is complete in that it has all the music arranged as used in the film (there are no "bonus alternate takes, or unused portions).
The single-disc release of this score at the film's debbut was a frustrating experience. And of the three scores was the least interesting, coherent release. That had more to do with the fact that we had come to hear so much in these scores that 70 minutes was just not enough. Shore's score also just got more diffuse as the series progressed making standalone concert-like tracks harder. (I think it might have been assembled before things were all final as well.) So when I went back to one of my published reviews of this score, I noted my hope for a fuller presentation in future. Well, we have one now. This is a nearly 3 hour + presentation of the score (a DVD-Audio version will also be included but was unavailable for review).
Disc One opens with “Roots and Beginnings” in which Shore lays out the ring’s powerful hold and we get to hear it as the music underneath hints at other connections to characters that we have come to know in the present. We desire to hear that hope still exists after the end of the final scenes in the previous film. We know something must happen that will drive the destinies of the various character’s storylines forward and we get all of that in the opening six minutes which make up this track of darkness overpowering light. Everything in this first disc feels like it is trying so hard to burst forth, we hear glimmers of this in “The Road to Isengard” where there is a delightful variation of the Middle Earth theme on flute. The first huge explosion of musical sound occurs in “The Palantir” and its opening is one of the densest (and richly dissonant) orchestral textures heard yet in this score. Here it helps dramatically within the context of a purely instrumental setting to add appropriate tension and variety to the larger shape of the music.
There is an interesting shift in the second disc that focuses on music that seems almost aleatoric and diffuse, and the reassertion of strong thematic ideas. Things are not deconstructed so much as they continue to shift within Shore’s orchestral textures. When familiar thematic ideas recur they are the breaths of fresh air that serve to anchor the listener as the surrounding material tries to pull them in various directions. In “Osgiliath Invaded,” which opens the second disc, Shore uses a relentless ostinato pattern that starts very subtly and then moves into a more forward presence before being piled into a multi-textured musical structure. We are still a long way from resolution here, but already the brighter upper brass begins to appear as does a huge choral finale (the “vox populi” perhaps) battling to be heard through the texture. This disc features some of the most tense and densest textures of the score with the ring motif appearing to weave its spell over the music as strings flit around (in the fascinating track “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol”). The score here does an interesting job of moving between these dark moments that stop and start and the bustling of tremendous expenditures of energy. Dare we say that the score even enters shades of gray as we hear music for the scenes taking place in “Dwimorberg-The Haunted Mountain” and later in “The Paths of the Dead.” Again, one is struck just how engaging the score is as music by itself. Throughout we sense a musical shift that goes from the updated Wagnerian leitmotifs to an almost Mahlerian conception of the orchestra.
The armies are on the move as disc three kicks off with one of the score’s highlights, “Grond-The Hammer of the Underworld.” There are more unusual combinations here as the incessant drumming moves forward before we shift to go to “Shelob the Great” in the following cue. In this series of sequences, there is a lot more brass writing, the strings seem mostly to provide the musical equivalent of confusion as the various fanfares begin to soar out of the textures. There is contention within the brass section as well as low sounds keep pulling the upper brass back down from their heights all with a relentless forward rhythmic motion. Themes shift from major key centers back into minor ones until they fall apart into a single note or two repeated. Ideas get stacked into tone clusters that try to break out into full thematic ideas in the first half of the disc. “A Far Green Country” gives a hint at what we are all fighting for, and to remember the fallen (“The House of Healing”) before we head back into the fray. As “For Frodo” concludes the disc we hear the hope for a positive resolution but the undercurrent of darkness in low strings and percussion stays ever present in the preceding “The Mouth of Sauron” even while the Hobbit music and Frodo’s theme play, blurring even hear whether the goal will be achieved when all is said and done. It is a masterful conclusion to this third disc.
“Mount Doom” casts its shadow on the start of the final disc as Shore builds a tremendous amount of tension that subtly grows. There is a lot going on here as strings slide around before the chorus bursts forth. The final portion of the disc returns us to the safety of numbers and a return to a former life, somehow transformed by the adventures undertaken. There is just a touch of bittersweet music as the fellowship takes its leave. An end credit suite, while redundant perhaps, would have filled out the disc and given us a chance to hear the thematic thrust of the score in a reduced form, but this is a minor concern.
By the time The Return of the King debuted, we were all a bit more familiar with the various thematic ideas that Shore had woven into his musical texture. Still, in the accompanying booklets for this superb series we see how they are far more intricate and in more musical pieces than we could possibly take in at a first hearing. That is what makes this final set the more satisfying as we can sit back and let the music wash over us hearing with our mind’s eye what Shore has created and creating our images to follow what appears. The Return of the King, indeed the whole series, seemed to have reached a pinnacle of melding film with visual imagery in such a way that the two often felt like one thread instead of a multi-layered one, something which really came to the forefront in this, the final film. The music does not so much tell us what to feel as it reminds us of where we have been and suggests to us where the story is heading. Everything works perfectly well and finally we can hear it in stellar sound. Ultimately, what the complete release does is drive you back to view the film and watch with an ear for how integral this score is to its picture.
The current presentation will continue the superb format of the previous two complete releases and will feature new artwork, and liner notes written by Doug Adams whose forthcoming book The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films should provide a fine companion to this all. This complete series of releases marks an appropriate recognition for one of film music’s finest achievements. I cannot imagine there being much left for Reprise to do commercially, though it would have been interesting to hear any alternate tracks or approaches. All that is left now is a recording of Shore’s concert adaptation. Taken together, the three complete releases of music from this trilogy stand as one of the recording industries crowning achievements.
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