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Nice BBoal! You wreck the party mood with your disdainful attitude.

But I have to admit 21st Century Orchestra and choir do not give the best performance of Shore's music.

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But I have to admit 21st Century Orchestra and choir do not give the best performance of Shore's music.

There is no such thing as a best performance (do not take this to mean that there are no bad performances however), there are only different performances.

I will have to listen again to this enjoyable concert work, the tweaks and rearranged positions of the music keep it fresh.

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When it comes to film music, I believe the original is the best performance. It's definitive - it's the final product. Everything else is just an interpretation. I've never encountered a re-recording or later performance that tops an original.

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Anyways isn't this the wrong thread for discussing the symphony? this is for the books only right?

Whereas this thread is for the films and their music: http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4149&page=1 ?

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Well I did win the game of admins...so do I have the power to move posts now? Are you all dead yet?

Everything else is just an interpretation.

This is pretty much what I am saying.

Yeah, this interpretation just happens to be a subpar one.

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But I have to admit 21st Century Orchestra and choir do not give the best performance of Shore's music.

There is no such thing as a best performance (do not take this to mean that there are no bad performances however), there are only different performances.

I will have to listen again to this enjoyable concert work, the tweaks and rearranged positions of the music keep it fresh.

From my personal perspective there exists the best performance, which happens to be in this case the soundtrack recordings. And different performance can be bad too. This particular performance is not the worse I have heard but neither it is close to the best. I do not mind different readings of the music as each orchestra gives in their performance a different interpretation but you don't have to be so neutral that you can't point out preference, merit (or lack thereof) of a performance.

But the symphony is to my ears a slightly tweaked "best of LotR" compilation.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The extensive disucssion on the effect of Tolkien's legendarium to some parts of the Hobbit's narrative and characters and places (Mirkwood particularly) are very fascinating. On the whole the earlier draft of the novel there was also something Rateliff has dubbed the Battle of the Anduin Vale and the Battle of the Five Armies was replaced by that. It happened rather on Bilbo's way back home from the mountain, where there was no battle and Bilbo got the Gem of Girion (Arkenstone's one incarnation) as a present. Thorin (or as he is called in the earlier drafts "Gandalf" was apparently alive and well at the end of the siege of the mountain but Gandalf and others negotiate a truce without any fighting). On the whole Rateliff is just as thorough as Christopher Tolkien is with the History of Middle-earth series.

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On the whole the earlier draft of the novel there was also something Rateliff has dubbed the Battle of the Anduin Vale and the Battle of the Five Armies was replaced by that. It happened rather on Bilbo's way back home from the mountain, where there was no battle and Bilbo got the Gem of Girion (Arkenstone's one incarnation) as a present. Thorin (or as he is called in the earlier drafts "Gandalf" was apparently alive and well at the end of the siege of the mountain but Gandalf and others negotiate a truce without any fighting).

When you say Gandalf here, do you mean Gandalf Thorin or Gandalf Gandalf (aka Bladorthin)?

Gandalf Gandalf. He is there the same as in the final novel to try to negotiate with the dwarves. But it is interesting that the deaths of Thorin, Fili and Kili do not appear in the early draft.

I think I should read the History of the Hobbit again to reacquaint myself to all the changes Tolkien made to the narrative over the years. Rateliff is very thorough right down to the change of wording but I am usually more interested in the bigger changes. It is really interesting to follow the creative path and different ideas of the author and Tolkien usually had them aplenty in some details (and some stayed amazingly true to their first conception throughout).

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  • 2 weeks later...

On another note, I just got my Alan Lee illustrated 3-volume set of Lord of the Rings in the mail along with the illustrated Hobbit. Gorgeous tomes. :)

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On the whole the earlier draft of the novel there was also something Rateliff has dubbed the Battle of the Anduin Vale and the Battle of the Five Armies was replaced by that. It happened rather on Bilbo's way back home from the mountain, where there was no battle and Bilbo got the Gem of Girion (Arkenstone's one incarnation) as a present. Thorin (or as he is called in the earlier drafts "Gandalf" was apparently alive and well at the end of the siege of the mountain but Gandalf and others negotiate a truce without any fighting).

When you say Gandalf here, do you mean Gandalf Thorin or Gandalf Gandalf (aka Bladorthin)?

Gandalf Gandalf. He is there the same as in the final novel to try to negotiate with the dwarves. But it is interesting that the deaths of Thorin, Fili and Kili do not appear in the early draft.

Actually, it was just Fili and Kili who survived in the early drafts (in the "Third Phase"), Thorin still died,, Thorin only survived in the Plot Notes.

Just finished reading the stuff dealing with the 3rd phase and with the "Proposed Corrections" BTW,

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Ah quite right, quite right. I have to say I am at times a bit bewildered by the nomenclature of all these "phases" and "drafts". :)

I am re-reading through the History of the Lord of the Rings (Part 1: The Return of the Shadow) in the History of Middle-earth series at the moment. It is very interesting to follow the way Tolkien initially constructed the story and text and how much was actually changed and revised and surprisingly how much was retained from the early versions of the tale in the final text. I am very glad Marmaduke (Meriadoc) and Bingo Bolger-Baggins (Frodo) and Odo Bolger/Took (Pippin) were left by the wayside as names for the protagonists and Tolkien supressed much of the "hobbit-talk". Also Trotter is quite a character at this point.

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