Annie Lennox, Howard Shore - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
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CD Details
Artist: Annie Lennox, Howard ShoreEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Enhanced, Soundtrack
CD Release Date: 2003-11-25
Music Label: Reprise / Wea
Product features:
- SOUNDTRACK EL SEĆ'OR DE LOS ANILLOS 3: THE RETURN OF
- A Storm Is Coming
- Hope And Memory
- Minas Tirith
- The White Tree
- The Steward Of Gondor
- Minas Morgul
- The Ride of the Rohirrim
- Twilight And Shadow
- Cirith Ungol
- Anduril
- Shelob's Lair
- Ash And Smoke
- The Fields Of The Pelennor
- Hope Fails
- The Black Gate Opens
- The End Of All Things
- The Return Of The King
- The Grey Havens
- Into The West
Music reviews of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Music Review: Profoundly bland and uninspiring; the weakest of the three.
Rating: 2 Stars
In all my 23 years as a classical music and orchestral film score aficionado, I have never encountered a finer example of deterioration in artistry as I have witnessed with Howard Shore's music for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Though it never approached the heights of any of the best trilogy scores (e.g. Williams' Star Wars IV-VI, and Goldsmith's three Omen scores), the music for The Fellowship of the Ring was nevertheless a solid soundtrack, most notable for its identifiably pleasant though tragically under-explored (some may say understated) leitmotifs. Shore brought nothing original or technically interesting to the table, but the music did serve its purpose, and occasionally, it even had something special to say about what was happening onscreen (the entry into Dwarrowdelf in Moria -- track 12, 2:06 -- is probably the best and most memorable example), thereby clearly manifesting itself as a singular and essential element of the entire film-watching experience. It also had two excellent songs, both of which featured two of the greatest vocalists in music today (Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser for "Lothlorien," and Enya for "May It Be").
The Two Towers saw Shore's music sink further into what would become, in his Return of the King score, a litany of lyrical and technical platitudes. The soundtrack for the second film was markedly unadventurous, preferring to take the all-too-common role of supporter instead of existing as a singular part of the story-telling machine. When it wasn't (and sometimes when it was) resorting time and again to legato horns and strings (frequently doubled), airy choral passages, ostinato percussion, or the fortification of leitmotif in a shallow pool of technique and expression, it was often predictable in its timbre (strings for sadness and longing, horns for majesty and action, chorus for accenting/doubling sadness or action, etc.), and in the progression of its phrases. Still, moments of musical goodness shone through, few and far between though they were (e.g. Aragorn/Gimli/Legolas' first sight of the plains of Rohan, their suiting up for the battle of Helm's Deep, and Frodo's falling face-first into swamp water -- which wasn't used in the movie). None of the songs were memorable, though, although the timbre of Emiliana Torrini's voice in the closing track added something to a lullaby with puerile lyrics and prosaic instrumental phrasing.
The Return of the King score may be summed up by the observation that, in it, Shore repeats all of the flaws of the first two scores ad infinitum (Peter Jackson, the director of the three movies, probably hand a big hand in this -- see below). It is a nigh non-stop barrage of sustained notes, grandiose tuttis, and gross technical overuse. (Did Shore have to employ reserve strings and horn players?) His flute and airy chorus in "The Steward of Gondor" make a nice representation of the tragic figure of Denethor, father of Boromir and Faramir (actor Billy Boyd puts in some fine singing at the end of the track), and "Minas Morgul" is an intriguing restatement of his Sauron theme; but beyond these, there just isn't much at all to the music. In fact, there may be nothing to it. The tracks flow virtually indistinguishably from one to the next, wafting or bellowing along in utterly familiar formulae of legato strings and horns, aimless dissonance (aimlessness is exactly what one should not hear where dissonance is concerned), rumbling percussion, and boy-chant. This is background music at its most... well, at its most background. The music is just terrible.
Having watched the musical making-of portion of the extended Two Towers DVD, I do wonder how much of the badness in Shore's three scores is the fault of director Peter Jackson. He clearly did a significant bit of musical managing in all three of the scores, which would be fine if he had some kind of musical background. I don't see any evidence that he does have such, though, and I wonder how much better the music might have been had his input been limited to little more than playing a couple of instruments which he'd never touched before (Jackson strikes a gong somewhere in the Two Towers score, and he might play something in the Return of the King soundtrack). Better directors like Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick have evinced a respect for music and composers that makes it hard for me to believe that they would ever be as involved in the music-making process as Jackson seems to be (Spielberg has been known to fashion or change large sections of a movie to suit John Williams' scoring, and Kubrick usually used previously-recorded music). Then again, Howard Shore is no John Williams or Gyorgy Ligeti -- the best Shore music I've ever heard is his wonderful main title sequence for Tim Burton's Ed Wood. It's a fantastic mix of percussion, brass, and theremin, one that suggests a composer in his truer element. Nothing else of his that I've heard has been nearly that creative, catchy, and pleasing overall.
This score for the final chapters of Tolkien's seminal odyssey of high fantasy is one for the most ardent fans only, that large demographic to whom Peter Jackson and company are superhumans who can do virtually no wrong.
Edit: Having taken the objective route of listening to the score again and again (mostly as a result of my love for the movie), I do find the last minute or so of "The White Tree" quite good (though not very creative); it's a classic example of good build-up, and a defiantly proud and touching statement of the composer's Gondor theme. Most of the rest of the music is still filler at best, though. Shame the choral rendition of the fellowship theme isn't on this disc; always trust a studio (and often the composer, for that matter) to leave some of the best music in the movie off the commercial soundtrack.
Description of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The regular jewel-case version will contain one of seven collectors? cards.This final chapter of Peter Jackson's sprawling adaptation of Tolkien's "Ring" trilogy closes out one of the most accomplished cycles in cinema--and film music--history. As he's done for the saga's first two installments, composer Howard Shore has honed a mature, brooding orchestral masterpiece that's long on subtle shadings of mood and nuance, while eschewing the hollow bombast that's characterized all too many mainstream action and adventure films for three decades. If anything, he's pared this chapter of his music for Middle Earth even closer to the bone, the trilogy's familiar themes repeated with a sparing hand that only heightens their dramatic power. Like Herrmann before him, Shore has a preternatural understanding of orchestral timbres and their almost mystical connections with human emotions, and he's used it here to close out this remarkable trilogy with Wagnerian dramatic sweep, yet one with a distinctly modern, understated melodic sense that is Shore's alone. James Galway and Renee Fleming make key instrumental and vocal contributions, respectively, while Annie Lennox's soulful "Into the West" makes the expected, if unobtrusive, bow to the theatrical pop song conventions. --Jerry McCulley
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