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Incanus, thank you for answering my question. You always provide such tremendous insight. I think you are right about the idea that if the music doesn't speak to you, no matter how genius or terrible it is, you're not going to be able to love it. About Howard Shore's music for LOTR, as far as iconography goes, he really accomplished that mission. The music for LOTR is as iconographic as anything out there, probably more so if you add in the reality distortion field of rabid fantasy fans. As a result, the music essentially has become much more than the sum of its parts. I don't feel that my thoughts on the music do anything to belittle it. I suppose I just wish that I could love it more. It definitely has its moments. Anything underscoring the elves, I think is pretty great. I do enjoy the otherworldly quality of some of the textures that Shore manages to create. It's funny, I'm writing this trying to think of a specific reason why it doesn't work for me. I do understand Shore's approach to leitmotif, and I understand and hear the technical aspects that went into the construction of the score. However, such things don't really impress me, as I am a firm believer that music shouldn't take longer to explain than it does to play. I suppose, regarding the leitmotif idea, overall, the score seems (pardon the phrase) leitmotif heavy... Most of the motifs, though short, are well put together and capture the essence of what they are trying to convey, but only temporarily. I always walk away wishing there was more depth to them. Also, when a score is leitmotif heavy, it loses its sense of musical storytelling. When listening to the score on its own, I don't find myself following parts of the story at all because the motifs happen so often, that they convolute where we are in the story. Perhaps it would be better if the transitional elements of the score were more cohesive. I'm not really sure. It's also possible that I am biased in the sense that I'm really not a huge fan of the "modern" film score. Perhaps this is even more true when it comes to fantasy scores. One of my favorite fantasy scores is Willow, written by James Horner, who, I think was a major driving force in ushering in the modern film score in the 90s, therefore somewhat killing off the classic romantic film score. I don't really care for his modern scores, other than maybe Braveheart and Ransom. However, those I like because they were dealing with something fairly new at the time. Back in the 80s, though, he could really write: Willow, Star Trek II, etc.... With the LOTR score being so modern, it just seems like the sandbox has been shrunk. I'm not sure if it makes any sense, but though the goal of the modern film score seems to be to push the limits of what we hear, it seems like it is required to follow an even stricter set of guidelines than something neo-romantic where the sky is the limit. Either way, creating iconography with a more modern style is a difficult task, and Shore manages to do it somehow. I guess I just don't find it fulfilling in the end. It reminds me of how I feel about the scores for Harry Potter 4-8. Same idea.

Looking forward to seeing him live in less than three weeks.

Listening to the 5 disc Ben Hur set, especially the last two cd's. some amazing stuff, music few composers alive today (not including JW here) could even begin to duplicate.

Your lack of taste?

Well said. I'd like to add an example of War Horse's unpredictability--the rendition of the Bonding Theme heard during "The Homecoming" at 5:50. Those chords completely surprised me when I first heard them.

You NEED to sort out your priorities!