Hylian Dan

Shouldn't we expect Laketown to inherit either the Gondor or Rohan theme? Because, you know, the race of men and all. And then there's the Anduril theme for Bard, Evenstar for Tauriel, and tracked Shelob's Lair music for the spiders.

Isn't that part based on Renee Fleming's solo from The Grace of Undomiel? Particularly the descending bit.

I forgot in my previous post that that sequence from Very Old Friends is played in The Shire track, during Bilbo's narration, replacing the regular climax of the Shire theme. The chord progression I think is the same as in A Hobbit's Understanding, but the notes that play over them seem to match what you hear in The Journey to the Grey Havens during Gandalf's Farewell. Good points about Thorin's Pride/The Nazgul. It really is a bizarre use of the theme. Hopefully the lyrics will tell us more once translated, or we'll understand it better through the next two soundtracks. Maybe Jackson's Azog will head to Dol Guldor and hang out with some Ringwraiths there!

I'm very glad I found this thread - I've been looking for a place to discuss The Hobbit's score after seeing the movie twice, and reading the posts here it seems a lot of you shared my reaction to it. I walked away from my first viewing pretty disappointed with the score - with the exception of the Misty Mountains theme, which was great, the only cues I easily recalled were the parts recycled from LotR. The usage of A Hobbit's Understanding, the Nazgul, and Gondor Reborn brought to mind the way LotR video games treat the score. There's no perceived need for the developers to arrange any music of their own since the movies' scores already exist, so they just stitch together and loop the film scores based almost purely on effect rather than theme. Is there a battle in this level? Cue the Isengard or Ringwraith music, that'll get the player's blood pumping!! So I came to this forum wanting to rant a bit about stuff like that, but I saw KK.'s rant a few pages back and I think he covered pretty much all the points I wanted to make and then some. And now that I've started scrutinizing the score more closely, there are two particular pieces of it that I want to analyze and defend: the use of Gandalf's Farewells and The Nazgul theme. To me, Gandalf's Farewell's doesn't actually seem to belong to Gandalf - rather it feels like the music is conveying how the hobbits feel about losing Gandalf in Moria, especially when we get that lengthy shot of Frodo's face looking back at Aragorn. The theme seems to suggest Frodo's realization that Gandalf was not actually beyond the reach of death, though he seemed like he'd be around forever. When we hear the theme again in The Crack of Doom it also comes from the hobbits' perspective, as Frodo and Sam recognize that their long journey is at last over and there is nothing left but death. It is that same feeling of realization that life is not forever. I think the first time we hear this theme is in Very Old Friends at 1:42, when Bilbo says, "I'm old, Gandalf" and talks about butter scraped across too much bread. There is a note of uncertainty that breaks from the theme when Gandalf notices Bilbo clutching the ring in his pocket. Tolkien has said that LotR "is about Death and the desire for deathlessness." "It is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality; and the 'escapes': serial longevity, and hoarding memory" and I think Gandalf's Farewells is meant to convey the necessity and inevitability of death - it's a very sad and haunting theme but it is also beautiful, and especially at Mount Doom there is even a sense of peace and acceptance in it. The tension and anxiety only invades the theme when Bilbo is clutching the ring, a means of escaping death. In The Hobbit, this theme is used to convey Bilbo's recognition that his journey is ending. "I'm old now, Frodo. I'm not the same hobbit I once was," he says, mirroring what he admits to Gandalf in FotR. He looks longingly at a drawing of his younger self. He wants to reach for Sting, but he grabs a book instead - he wants to relive his life, but he records it instead, letting go. Gandalf's Farewells theme is perhaps about Death and the desire for deathlessness, and I feel it is a fitting and beautiful way to bookend these films. Yeah, this is the big one. I was very startled when I heard it, and thought for a moment that this might be when the soundtrack jumps the shark and begins chucking in old themes in any context without pretense. However, just days before seeing the movie I had been reading up on some lyrics translations for the LotR music. I quickly noticed that these were not the typical Nazgul lyrics, which say something like "We renounce our Maker. We are the Nine." I'm curious what these new lyrics translate to - they might do the job of explaining and justifying the theme's use for us. But I think there are enough hints for me to explain the connection already. First, the music's attention is focused on Thorin, rather than Azog. The Nazgul theme is revealed very dramatically while our eyes are held squarely on Thorin. The tone of the opening notes of the Nazgul theme is also different from what we are used to. It reminds me of how Gandalf the White's theme functions as a restoration of Isengard's theme. I believe Shore could be using this as a foundation for the Nazgul theme, creating two sides to it as he did for the two White Wizards. Except this music isn't a restoration of the Nazgul theme, but rather a herald of it. During the opening of The Hobbit, we were introduced to a great king of dwarves. Surrounded by gold and treasure, he succumbed to a sickness of the mind. When Erebor fell, Bilbo tells us ominously that he never forgave, and he never forgot. Aragorn gave us this description of the Nazgul: "They were once men. Great kings of men. Then Sauron the Deceiver gave to them nine rings of power. Blinded by their greed, they took them without question, one by one fallen into darkness... They will never stop hunting you." The appearance of the Nazgul's theme in The Hobbit presents us with the image of Thorin as a great king poised to fall into darkness. Bilbo, Gandalf and Balin watch him with dread, Azog with eagerness, because they see at that moment that he has a sickness of the mind. He will never forgive or forget, and he will never stop hunting those who stole from him. He is becoming a slave to his obsession, like the Nazgul. Howard Shore is using this moment to reveal the origins of the Nazgul theme by connecting their story to Thorin's.