Composer Threads The Bear McCreary Thread

[Richard Penna 3,687]

No doubt there's alternate material - we know of one minor one which is a track later on in the series where he recorded Halbrand's theme iirc, with two solo instruments to avoid clashing with dialogue.

 

However, given that with a different release mentality this box could easily have been a highlights release (with maybe half of each score), the fact that it has nearly everything heard in the show is more than good enough for me.

[Evanus 217]

Meanwhile I'm still waiting for more complete versions of the Hobbit scores..

[Richard Penna 3,687]

That's one Middle Earth release I wouldn't have much interest in, mainly as the SEs are reasonably comprehensive for those not massively familiar with the films. It would be nice to hear the film version of the eagles scene from the first one but I can't think of a single moment from the other two scores.

[Tom Guernsey 2,284]

On 27/03/2024 at 3:46 PM, Yavar Moradi said:

 

I guess I'm a rare person who finds it too short and disjointed, with all of those album arrangements of themes mixed in with "real cues", and everything all jumbled up largely out of order and fragmented. I like a few highlights from that highlights album, but overall I far, FAR prefer the episode albums.

I gave the highlights album another listen this week and really enjoyed it. It's too long to sit and listen to in one sitting so I listened to it in smaller chunks although was still quite surprised how quickly the time seemed fly by. However I was reminded just how great some of the other themes were. I'm not disputing that the individual episode scores are great, but getting familiar with that much music so you then can decide which one to listen to is more challenging that's all.

 

On 27/03/2024 at 3:46 PM, Yavar Moradi said:

Huh! I find a ton of his themes quite memorable and distinct. I can easily recall to mind the main love theme from Outlander, a later love theme for different characters, Frank's theme, the Druid theme, etc! It amazes me how many memorable and distinct themes he was able to create for The Rings of Power. This might still be my favorite McCreary theme though:

It might help if I watched these shows, although I have to admit that I can still only remember the main theme from Da Vinci's Demons which I'm watching at the moment. The Rings of Power themes are generally a considerable step up. Human Target is great fun for sure. I know he cares about writing decent thematic material for the shows and movies he scores, and I have almost all of theme, but I'm not going round humming his stuff like I am Jerry or JW or John Williams...

 

Unfortunately the other videos aren't available for me.

[Chen G. 3,949]

On 27/03/2024 at 8:25 PM, Evanus said:

Meanwhile I'm still waiting for more complete versions of the Hobbit scores..

 

Hey, look at it this way: off of this release, we got more Howard Shore and Plan 9 pieces in physical media!

[Richard Penna 3,687]

2 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

It might help if I watched these shows, although I have to admit that I can still only remember the main theme from Da Vinci's Demons which I'm watching at the moment. The Rings of Power themes are generally a considerable step up. Human Target is great fun for sure. I know he cares about writing decent thematic material for the shows and movies he scores, and I have almost all of theme, but I'm not going round humming his stuff like I am Jerry or JW or John Williams...

 

I find Bear's themes and scores in general a bit mixed and my current fandom of him is driven almost entirely by RoP and Outlander, with a little bit of TWD (although the album situation for that series is pretty much unacceptable). The theme from Da Vinci is really good though, and a handful of other tracks from that album were interesting. Most of his film work and horror material doesn't do a lot for me really.

 

2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

Hey, look at it this way: off of this release, we got more Howard Shore and Plan 9 pieces in physical media!

 

I'm probably never going to understand the love for Shore's main title piece 

 

It's a nice piece but just for my personal tastes it's overshadowed completely by Bear's themes and work overall. I probably wouldn't even have been that personally bothered if Shore had declined to allow it on the release (due to whatever crap went on that he doesn't want to talk about).

[Knight of Ren 789]

I think Bear's thematic material shines in the TV shows where he allows his themes to develop across multiple seasons. RoP will surely be a great example of this when it's done, but Outlander is definitely one of my favorite scores by him, and as mentioned above has several recognizable ideas that I could hum with ease, like Claire and Jaime's theme, John Grey's theme, the Stones theme or the gorgeous title song, The Skye Boat Song.

 

Something similar happens with Masters of the Universe, which has some of the catchiest themes he has done I feel. And I also think he crafted memorable and instantly recognizable themes for his God of War scores!

[Chen G. 3,949]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

I probably wouldn't even have been that personally bothered if Shore had declined to allow it on the release (due to whatever crap went on that he doesn't want to talk about).

 

For a while there, I had a suspicion that there had been something unsavoury happening behind the scenes, but I'm no longer inclined to think so, and at any rate this is the McCreary thread so I'm not going to rain on people's parade with explaining what might or might not have happened with another composer...

 

And I suppose because its just one piece by Howard, it does stick out. The way to appreciate it surely is to look at it as a prelude to the Shore scores, not within the framework of Bear's score. And as a prelude to Howard's scores, its pretty masterfull how Howard had distilled so much of his Tolkien "sound" into 90 seconds, and being that it IS a prelude to a show, in large part, about the past of Elvendom and Elrond, the allusions to Rivendell are extremly apposite.

 

And this is sad proof to my building thesis that Plan 9 and David Long are something of unsung heroes, because they also provided the show with some extremly worthwhile contributions: This is the second time that Plan 9 and David Long had written a song for a Tolkien piece that, at least as far as people at large are concerned, is the "big tune" of the piece.

 

I admit, something about the transition from Megan Richards singing a-cappella to a souped-up studio recording with accompaniment does feel a little saccharine to me, but the melody is very gratiating and sits very well with Shore's and Plan 9's previous contributions to the soundscapes of the Hobbits. The version by Plan 9's Janet Roddick is a very intelligent interpertation of the melody and lyrics.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

 

 

 

 

I'm probably never going to understand the love for Shore's main title piece 

 

It's a nice piece but just for my personal tastes it's overshadowed completely by Bear's themes and work overall. I probably wouldn't even have been that personally bothered if Shore had declined to allow it on the release (due to whatever crap went on that he doesn't want to talk about).

 

Honestly i find myself playing it often. I think it is a tremendous piece of writing, very refined and masterful - and that in just 90 seconds.

[Chen G. 3,949]

I think its just weird to hear it within the context of a McCreary album or, for that matter, an episode mostly scored by McCreary.

 

The two could not sound more different if they tried, in melodic and harmonic content (notwithstanding some connections so abstractly 'musicological' as to be nonexistent) but even just in terms of orchestration: you hear 90 seconds of Shore's massed, blended orchestrations and then you shift to the mock-Late-Romantic Hollywood sound of Bear.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

28 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

For a while there, I had a suspicion that there had been something unsavoury happening behind the scenes, but I'm no longer inclined to think so, and at any rate this is the McCreary thread so I'm not going to rain on people's parade with explaining what might or might not have happened with another composer...

 

I'm not at all averse to discussing what might have happened as long as it resolves around attributable quotes or news, rather than one of the several fanboys we have around who just couldn't handle Shore not doing it, and were searching for the smallest bit of evidence of the showrunners having betrayed Shore and hoping for some weird comeuppance. (some very amusing cognitive bias going on with one or two people, given they were at the same time arguing that soundbites praising the score were in no way to be taken seriously)

 

My personal suspicion is that perhaps Shore offered to do some more themes and maybe even write some of the score, but that the showrunners didn't like his demos. I just can't think of another reason why him and Doug Adams would be clearly so agitated by the situation.

 

I think it might've been better to just ask Bear to do the main titles and avoid this sort of comparison from the beginning. Non music people like me respect the compositional differences but don't understand them enough to know why so many are annoyed.

[Chen G. 3,949]

4 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

My personal suspicion is that perhaps Shore offered to do some more themes and maybe even write some of the score, but that the showrunners didn't like his demos. I just can't think of another reason why him and Doug Adams would be clearly so agitated by the situation.

 

That was my suspicion for a while, too! But I've since been told on good authority that Shore only previewed the piece we hear.

[Jurassic Shark 12,072]

9 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

My personal suspicion is that perhaps Shore offered to do some more themes and maybe even write some of the score, but that the showrunners didn't like his demos.

 

Either that, or Bear shouldered him out.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

That was my suspicion for a while, too! But I've since been told on good authority that Shore only previewed the piece we hear.

 

That's just bizarre. Could it therefore be as simple as Shore (and co) didn't like what Bear composed, as in they were as annoyed at some are here about the compositional differences?

[Chen G. 3,949]

Just now, Jurassic Shark said:

Bear shouldered him out.

 

Listening to interviews with Bear, it seems the situation with Shore was already a given when Bear came on.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

I suspect the initial report that Shore was in talks to score the show didn't help in terms of expectation management. The moment it's suggested that he might be writing any actual score, the pitchforks were primed for when another composer is announced.

 

47 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I admit, something about the transition from Megan Richards singing a-cappella to a souped-up studio recording with accompaniment does feel a little saccharine to me, but the melody is very gratiating and sits very well with Shore's and Plan 9's previous contributions to the soundscapes of the Hobbits. The version by Plan 9's Janet Roddick is a very intelligent interpertation of the melody and lyrics.

 

I love Richards' interpretation, saccharine or not. Plenty of Shore's RotK material gets far too sugary for me when everything is wrapping up - I think they're all guilty of it.

[Chen G. 3,949]

1 hour ago, Richard Penna said:

I love Richards' interpretation, saccharine or not.

 

No, I mean its more the way we move from on-set, tentative vocals to a souped-up studio recording that's saccharine. The performance itself is very accomplished and touching.

 

But its a Plan 9/David Long composition!

[TolkienSS 407]

2 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

Honestly i find myself playing it often. I think it is a tremendous piece of writing, very refined and masterful - and that in just 90 seconds.

 

Contrary to much of the rest of the score, it's able to form a prolonged and meaningful, fluid musical statement with confidence, without having to resort to unusual instruments and big drums to make an impact.

[mstrox 6,651]

Frankly, at least on the OST, I prefer the Shore track to anything else by a good margin.  But I do think that this is career-best stuff from McCreary.

[Chen G. 3,949]

4 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

Could it therefore be as simple as Shore (and co) didn't like what Bear composed, as in they were as annoyed at some are here about the compositional differences?

 

I can't imagine that being the case, but who knows! Bear surely writes very differently from Shore - the imitative use of timbre notwithstanding - and I do think some might see Bear's composition as a little too much of a "oicture postcard from Middle Earth", but if there were to be any displeasure on Shore's part I can't imagine that would be the impetus of it. Certainly, to hear Bear talk about it, his audience with Shore was perfectly cordial.

[Richard Penna 3,687]

I found this interesting video which I'm just about able to understand, musically.

 

I'm still in the camp that finds his piece a bit simple in comparison to most stuff he did in LotR, though, and if many people reacted how I did (i.e. a little bit 'meh'), does that not indicate that Shore composed a main title that drives other composers and scholars crazy, but doesn't make much impression on Joe Public? Sure, he absofuckinglutely did that with LotR (it's quite literally the reason I'm writing this now) but that doesn't mean he did the same here.

 

 

[Chen G. 3,949]

5 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

does that not indicate that Shore composed a main title that drives other composers and scholars crazy, but doesn't make much impression on Joe Public?

 

Well, in the video, Monovernatus cites the motivic simplicity of the piece as the cause for some people finding it underwhelming. Certainly, its built on massed orchestrations and on the simplest motivic ideas - a broken arpeggio, falling scales and third-related chords - rather than on some long, italianate melody line. But then, that's true of all of Shore's Tolkien oeuvre, and of many composers prior. To be fair, it had merited some critiques, not least of which by members of this board.

 

I think the reason some - not I - find it underwhelming is a combination of this issue with issues of dynamics and, most of all, context. Ultimately, Howard Shore just isn't one to write a track that's introductory in nature, as this one is , with a loud, attention-grabbing dynamic in the Rossini vein. Possibly his most salient description of his procedures comes from the period of recording An Unexpected Journey: "I think a film score can be succesfull if it transports the audience into the world of the film in a very seamless way, so they don't really know that they've been taken there."

 

Now, when we're presented with an entire Howard Shore score, the very understated openings make "structural" sense to us. But here where we only have this one track from Shore, followed by a McCreary score in a completely different style, we're kind of left wanting. If we listen to it rather as a prelude to the films, rather than as part of the show, I think it works much better.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

6 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

For a while there, I had a suspicion that there had been something unsavoury happening behind the scenes, but I'm no longer inclined to think so, and at any rate this is the McCreary thread so I'm not going to rain on people's parade with explaining what might or might not have happened with another composer...

 

And I suppose because its just one piece by Howard, it does stick out. The way to appreciate it surely is to look at it as a prelude to the Shore scores, not within the framework of Bear's score. And as a prelude to Howard's scores, its pretty masterfull how Howard had distilled so much of his Tolkien "sound" into 90 seconds, and being that it IS a prelude to a show, in large part, about the past of Elvendom and Elrond, the allusions to Rivendell are extremly apposite.

 

And this is sad proof to my building thesis that Plan 9 and David Long are something of unsung heroes, because they also provided the show with some extremly worthwhile contributions: This is the second time that Plan 9 and David Long had written a song for a Tolkien piece that, at least as far as people at large are concerned, is the "big tune" of the piece.

 

I admit, something about the transition from Megan Richards singing a-cappella to a souped-up studio recording with accompaniment does feel a little saccharine to me, but the melody is very gratiating and sits very well with Shore's and Plan 9's previous contributions to the soundscapes of the Hobbits. The version by Plan 9's Janet Roddick is a very intelligent interpertation of the melody and lyrics.

 

5 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

My personal suspicion is that perhaps Shore offered to do some more themes and maybe even write some of the score, but that the showrunners didn't like his demos. I just can't think of another reason why him and Doug Adams would be clearly so agitated by the situation.

 

5 hours ago, Chen G. said:

That was my suspicion for a while, too! But I've since been told on good authority that Shore only previewed the piece we hear.

 

5 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Either that, or Bear shouldered him out.

 

5 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Listening to interviews with Bear, it seems the situation with Shore was already a given when Bear came on.

 

Or maybe there was disagreement about budget and timing and Shore couldn't agree to that. Writing 8 hours of music is a HUGE undertaking. I think Shore might have demanded much more time and a bigger budget and compensation for his services. TV schedule is too pushing for a composer of Shore's stature. 

 

Also think about it - this would have been an impossible gig for Shore. Imagine hiring John Williams to write 8 hours of new Star Wars music and tell him - you can't use a note of anything you wrote previously because we don't have the rights. That's putting him in a straight jacket. 

 

Shore would have to constantly watch out for falling into old modes as is bound to happen when you are returning to the same property. 

 

I mean 8 hours of new middle earth music from Shore would have been God's gift. but I ain't about to scoff at the score Bear wrote - I think he did a great job still. And we did get a great main title from Shore.

 

[Richard Penna 3,687]

25 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Or maybe there was disagreement about budget and timing and Shore couldn't agree to that. Writing 8 hours of music is a HUGE undertaking. I think Shore might have demanded much more time and a bigger budget and compensation for his services. TV schedule is too pushing for a composer of Shore's stature. 

 

That would seem to me as more than a disagreement but a fundamental issue with anyone except a seasoned, well-oiled TV composer team trying to take it on. Had Shore said he's happy to do it, but needs a year to write the score but the producers come back and say they can't give him that sort of time... that's just the nature of TV scoring and schedules, and Bear can do it because he's built up a team and workflow, but does mean that for most of his projects we're hearing music from others too.

 

25 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Also think about it - this would have been an impossible gig for Shore. Imagine hiring John Williams to write 8 hours of new Star Wars music and tell him - you can't use a note of anything you wrote previously because we don't have the rights. That's putting him in a straight jacket. 

 

Definitely a whole situation best avoided. I can't imagine approaching a composer who has completed several trilogies, amassed dozens of themes and told that he's not allowed to use anything that he created just because the copyright is owned by some other entity.

[Chen G. 3,949]

36 minutes ago, TheUlyssesian said:

Also think about it - this would have been an impossible gig for Shore. Imagine hiring John Williams to write 8 hours of new Star Wars music and tell him - you can't use a note of anything you wrote previously because we don't have the rights. That's putting him in a straight jacket. [...] And we did get a great main title from Shore.

 

That's what I think. For Season One, Amazon tried - and largely succeeded - in roping-in a huge number of Lord of the Rings and Hobbit luminaries: Howe, Shore, Plan 9, Weta Workshop, WetaFX; the art director, Jules Cook, was from Lord of the Rings; we're told half of the people on the sound department worked on the films; the costume designer, Kate Hawley, was going to do the costumes for Del Toro's Hobbit; Caligrapher Daniel Reeve and dialect coach Leith McPherson, were all on the payroll, and alll them felt this issue: WetaFX had to redesign Durin's Bane and Weta Workshop had to make a new Narsil.

 

There was an interview of Sir Richard Taylor who said he wasn't personally involved in the show because he "felt I couldn't offer anything new to the television series," and I can only imagine this was motivated by the legal situation, because shortly afterwards in an interview for Rohirrim (which on the face of it offers less opportunities for "new" things than the show) he turned and said: "To be on this journey, making The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, feels a bit like coming home. There's so much that is familar - the landscapes et cetera - but so much that is fresh and exciting."

 

I can only imagine Shore felt the brunt of this issue, because you can feel from his opening titles sequence that he WANTS to harken Rivendell: beyond the contour, the orchestration and harmonic background bear it out. But he couldn't, so he changed the rhythm some and substituted the flat sixth for a tritone.

[crocodile 8,012]

Looks like the set might be gone for good this time:

 

 

Karol