A Ring resounds in Middle-earth:
An artistic response to the thematic theatrics of
Howard Shore's scores
by John Cockshaw
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| Ring Cycle (2014) |
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| Ascension and decline (2014) |
A scene quietly unfolds
onscreen.
A well-known wizard sits
in front of a warmly-lit hearth in concerned contemplation,
The focus of his thoughts
is simply a ring.
The orchestra stirs gently,
The strings swell ever so
slightly,
An ancient-sounding musical
theme is heard, circling with a breath-like regularity.
This is an early
appearance of the History of the ring
as identified and analysed by musicologist Doug Adams chronicler of Howard
Shore’s score for The Lord of the Rings, and this breathing quality is a
trademark of much of Shore’s music but also stands as one of the components
that brings his Middle-earth writing to life so enticingly.
This is a theme of many
guises and permutations over the course of a 10 hour plus film score that gives
a musical voice to that most central of objects in Tolkien’s Middle-earth; The
One Ring. Through this theme the ring of
power is bestowed with anthropomorphic qualities and assumes its central spot
in the weighty drama with ever increasing diversity as the storytelling
progresses.
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| Variations on a theme of The Ring of Power (2014) |
Howard Shore’s film score
taken as a telling of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings in its own
right is a tremendously vast operatic work, a masterful orchestral powerhouse
of a score written in the digital age of film music. Tied to the film trilogy
it works beautifully and away from it works exactly the same on account of its
multi-textured and thematically rich presentation. It is a kingly gift to devotees of Tolkien’s
books as well as enthusiasts of the film it accompanies and also to lovers of
grand symphonic film music who might lament the lack of that trend in film
music today. Each of the separate scores
for The
Fellowship of The Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King form a separate act in a unifying and
immensely satisfying whole.
Concert performances,
lectures, a symphony, a whole book by Doug Adams and a trio of ‘complete
recordings’ releases have sprung from this grand musical work – the legacy of Shore’s
work has extended much further beyond the film trilogy it accompanies, but of
course wouldn’t have been afforded the necessity or budget to come into being
without it. There will always be other
fine orchestral interpretations of Tolkien’s Middle-earth to give it company,
such as Johan De Mej’s Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings,
Stephen Oliver’s music for the much-loved BBC Radio adaptation and Leonard
Rosenman’s score to the Ralph Bakshi animated film. But none of these offer such an extensive
effort at world-building through music that Shore achieves, and that is another
particular aspect of Howard Shore’s score that defines its brilliance. The benefit of in-depth planning and roughly
a year-long period of preparation for each of the film scores is a circumstance
that happens all too rarely on film projects simply for the lack of time,
impossibly short deadlines and other conspiring circumstances. Shore’s The Lord of the Rings
is a product of its unique circumstances with the composer being involved in
the film production from an early stage in its development. Canadian composer Shore came to the
production with prior experience of composing music for literary adaptations
and approaching projects with an operatic sensibility. In his 2010 book The Music of The Lord of the
Rings Films: A Comprehensive Account of Howard Shore’s Scores Doug
Adams comments that the search for the right composer for the project was a
crucial element for the production team to get right, “the author’s complex
literary structure required a worthy musical equivalent. And then there was the epic tale itself,
overflowing with cultures, customs, friendship, sacrifice, adventure and
danger.”
