LOTR Music

[chionos]

There's a ton of great music that's either LOTR themed or at least inspired by the series. From the movies' OST


to Trammel Sparks & Felicia Sorensen's loosely related A Trilogy of Fantasy CD


to the seminal psychedelic progressive rock genius of Bo Hansson's fittingly titled Lord of the Rings album (one of the few original vinyls I own).


And then there are the songs directly from the books, some of which ended up in the movies, while others did not.

Do you have a favorite LOTR song?

Did Peter Jackson piss you off when he left Bilbo's Attercop! song out of the second Hobbit movie? Or Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees?



Talk to me about music, EoFF.

[Freya]

Oh man. OH MAN. I freaking love the score. I actually really enjoy the hobbit trilogy in regards to the score so far. They use misty mountains theme throughout the whole score. So it'll be different depending on the situation but you can hear the misty mountains. It's great. Did you know Thorin, or Richard Armitage actually is singing that song in the film.

What's great too is all those iconic themes from the original trilogy are back too. When you see gollum you get his theme that you know. It was just a musical adventure of awesome. Howard Shore is simply amazing with his scores. You can hate on the new hobbit movies all you want but their scores are just as beautiful as the original trilogy. It's a whole musical experience that even if you don't like the way the plot has gone, I recommend taking that trip just for the score alone.

It's like Pippin, Billy Boyd! He actually sang his too!

I also really enjoy Ed Sheeran's I see fire that played at the end of Desolation of Smaug.

[Shorty]

When the Lord of the Rings films first came out, my family was going through a difficult time and was staying with another family we were friends with. I shared a room with the daughter (also my best friend) for the summer and we fell asleep to the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack every night. Howard Shore's music brings back a lot of good memories from then, even though times were tough.

[Jinx]

The soundtrack from the LotR trilogy is amazing.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Lord of the Rings music is fantastic. For me, I used to listen to The Two Towers soundtrack as I went to sleep. It just happened to be a soundtrack someone gave me as a gift I think. The King of the Golden Hall gets stuck in my head quite frequently. I just love that one repeating melody.



Also, the animated Hobbit music is fantastic.

[Freya]

DAMNIT. I missed Howard Shore's AMA yesterday.

[chionos]

DAMNIT. I missed Howard Shore's AMA yesterday.

Thanks, Freya, reading it now.

[Ayen]

Got to listen to the soundtrack again playing the Return of the King game. Still gives me goosebumps.

[fire_of_avalon]

Lord of the Rings music is fantastic. For me, I used to listen to The Two Towers soundtrack as I went to sleep. It just happened to be a soundtrack someone gave me as a gift I think. The King of the Golden Hall gets stuck in my head quite frequently. I just love that one repeating melody.

The Riders of Rohan and The King of the Golden Hall played consecutively is my jam. I think the ostinato (musicians please correct me if I used that term wrong, I don't musics) of the strings, you know the one, the one that fills you full of hope even when Theodred has died and Theoden is Scrima's thrall and Eomer and the other riders are a world away and Eowyn has found herself alone in an unfriendly home that melody. That melody is my theme song.

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

How has nobody posted this yet.

[Kossage]

The Lord of the Rings films have truly fantastic scores by Howard Shore. 11+ hours of music including alternate takes, compiled into three Complete Recordings of the three film scores and the Rarity Archives. One could say that this is the most complex film music will ever get thanks to its great orchestration, evolving themes (the LotR trilogy score has over 90 leitmotifs, and if we add the leitmotifs introduced in the Hobbit films into the equation, it grows even larger) and narrative cohesiveness. It's basically Wagner's Ring Cycle of the film music circles. If there was one flaw in the LotR trilogy, it was the minuscule role of dwarven thematic material (for understandable reasons), but thankfully that got remedied by the stuff we had in the Hobbit trilogy.

The LotR films have introduced plenty of memorable themes which change according to the needs of the story, and it's quite fascinating to observe the narrative change, especially on the Complete Recordings (which even include bits which were cut from the film). There are of course the fan favourites of the Shire and Hobbit themes, as well as ones for the Fellowship, Rohan and Gondor, and elves, not to mention Isengard's wonderfully punctuated march rhythms and the menace of the Mordor themes. Some of my favourite themes (or cues as the case may be here) from the trilogy include:

"History of the Ring" (first heard in the Prologue)


If I had to argue what the central and THE theme of all the LotR (and by extension Hobbit) films are, I'd argue for "History of the Ring", first heard played by strings during the opening of Fellowship of the Ring and repeated several times throughout the films. The most memorable and haunting of the Ring themes, it's in the background and becomes the driving force in the narrative upon which the fate of all of Middle-earth lies.

"Seduction of the Ring"


Another fine tune linked to the Ring is the "Seduction of the Ring" with that innocent sounding children's choir singing its deceptively simple and haunting tune whenever it tries to sway a character to its side. Interestingly, and fittingly, its most beautiful variation comes at the very end of its existence in Return of the King when it finally manages to seduce Frodo in Mount Doom before Frodo can throw it into the fire, a truly chilling moment as such a beautiful melody can be led by such a sinister force.

"Nature's Reclamation"


One of the most beautiful themes in the films has to be "Nature's Reclamation" which plays whenever forces of nature make a stand against the forces of darkness. Whether it's the moth sending Gandalf's message from Orthanc, the ents going to war, or the eagles coming to the rescue in both film trilogies, you can always hear this theme or its subtle variations (some of which you can hear in this compilation) somewhere and the theme is often given the weight it rightfully deserves, considering how important nature was to Tolkien.

"Lighting of the Beacons"


The whole buildup of this cue is great, but the bit what most people who have seen Return of the King remember fondly is when we hear the Gondor theme in all its splendor as the beacons are lit and hope returns to the world of men as Peter Jackson lets the grandiose cinematography and the music to tell the story for those precious few minutes. Gondor calls for aid...and Rohan will answer! Muster the Rohirrim!

"For Frodo"


"For Frodo" is one of my favourite musical and narrative moments in the LotR trilogy and for a good reason. It's the musical (and visual) culmination of the now matured Fellowship theme as the heroes who have been through so much prepare to sacrifice themselves in order to distract Sauron so that Frodo may succeed in his daring mission to end the threat of evil once and for all. It's a powerful moment, and hearing a full choir sing meaningful lyrics atop the Fellowship melody as each member of the Fellowship (including Sam and Frodo who race to Mount Doom) is doing their part in the struggle is nothing short of heroic. Ending it with "Nature's Reclamation" when avian reinforcements arrive and giving that hint at the History of the Ring theme is like cherry on top of a cake.

I could mention more themes, including the love/friendship themes and battle themes or Smaug's foreboding theme among others (not to mention the actual end credits songs of the films, particularly "Into the West"), but this list is getting lengthy enough, so it's time we end this appropriately, from another LotR film entirely...the animated one!

People are divided about Leonard Rosenman's sometimes odd score for the film, but this cue has stuck with me ever since I saw it as a kid. It's "Mithrandir", a song sung by Lothlorien elves after Gandalf's demise in the mines of Moria when they and the Fellowship mourn him. It slowly builds up to a full choral dirge of bittersweet proportions with truly inspiring lyrics, and it's one of the highlights of the film for me:

"Mithrandir"