SUH

Well, nearly five years on and I'm still discovering new things about these scores!
 
I had no idea the 'Forces of the Enemy' theme from ROTK (scoring the Witchking and Fellbeast at Minas Morgul) which is reprised in DOS for the Sauron reveal, is also played in BOTFA. I was shocked to hear it after all this time - perhaps this was obvious to many of you!
 
 
 
(twitter has a built in translator now - neat!)
 
Doug retweeted the penultimate tweet from this thread today (click the twitter icon to see the full thread).
 
Musical examples from those tweets:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Well, nearly five years on and I'm still discovering new things about these scores!
 
I had no idea the 'Forces of the Enemy' theme from ROTK (scoring the Witchking and Fellbeast at Minas Morgul) which is reprised in DOS for the Sauron reveal, is also played in BOTFA. I was shocked to hear it after all this time - perhaps this was obvious to many of you!
 
 
 
(twitter has a built in translator now - neat!)
 
Doug retweeted the penultimate tweet from this thread today (click the twitter icon to see the full thread).
 
Musical examples from those tweets:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Well, nearly five years on and I'm still discovering new things about these scores!
 
I had no idea the 'Forces of the Enemy' theme from ROTK (scoring the Witchking and Fellbeast at Minas Morgul) which is reprised in DOS for the Sauron reveal, is also played in BOTFA. I was shocked to hear it after all this time - perhaps this was obvious to many of you!
 
 
 
(twitter has a built in translator now - neat!)
 
Doug retweeted the penultimate tweet from this thread today (click the twitter icon to see the full thread).
 
Musical examples from those tweets:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The first half does have the Kili+Tauriel theme, that is also hers in a way.
 
Just 2 days ago I was almost sure I would need to think hard about possibly getting a possible Hobbit CR collection but damn, just this much mentioning of themes has reignited the memories and passion, these have a trove of great material.
And in my head from memories I just noticed the segment in the full, unreleased Forest River following the heroic Thorin Theme is reprised in Sons of Dúrin after... the heroic Thorin's Theme.

For a moment I thought you'd written ambitious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-uMEe3cHF8&t=0s&list=PLNizxfU9js0Jq1-a6GWDIbFL30-oQ3KX3&index=3
 

Man, what a snub for Hurwitz. You’d think after his win at the Globes, a nomination, even a win was in the bag. 

First Man wasn't even nominated? Seriously?
 
Such a shame, I thought Hurwitz's work for the film was one of the better scores of 2018.

The standard OST should have been 1 disc, very much like the LOTR ones. The deluxe fancy editions should have been 2 discs.
 
Its so simple!

Absolutely.
 
Just as an example of how thorough he is: we all know that when he works on an adapted film, he diligently reads the source material. But looking at production material from The Hobbit you'll see that he's actually reading The Annotated Hobbit, so he has the biggest possible background on the work. Now that's being involved!
 
I've been listening to this interview. I knew the Shire theme was written early on (as was Frodo's theme, per Shore, but that doesn't quite count) but I didn't know it was - as Jackson recalls it - before shooting began. That's awesome!

I think composers are rarely as involved as Shore was on all six films. 

Ouch, that does read like a huge jab at Howard Shore. Sad to read. 

I have enjoyed listening to Edith Bowman’s podcast ‘Soundtracking’ for a while now. She talks to filmmakers and composers about the music in their new films, as well as looking back across their careers. Music from the films being discussed is played alongside the interviews.
 
I was excited to see there was a new episode with Peter Jackson and Philipa Boyens discussing Mortal Engines, giving them a chance to talk about the LOTR scores - which I don’t think will happen very often.
 
During the opening discussion about Tom Holkenborg’s score to Mortal Engines, I thought Jackson gave a rather revealing description of their relationship (8:38).
 
 
Is it just me or does this feel like a jab at Howard Shore (edit: the parts in bold)? I can’t see how you would praise someone as being ‘on your side’, unless you previously worked with a collaborator who you felt was not on your side. The other composers he has worked are Michelle Scullion, Peter Dasent, Danny Elfman (was suprised to find this out!), James Newton Howard, Brian Eno and Plan 9. The only frequent collaborators here are Peter Dasent, Plan 9 and Howard Shore. We know that Shore was replaced on King Kong due to creative differences, and the Hobbit scoring process was significantly changed after the first movie and its late re-scoring sessions. It seems unlikely to me that Jackson is (indirectly) referring here to any other composer than Shore.
 
If this is indeed how he feels about working with Shore then I can’t help but feel a little sad. They collaborated together to make arguably some of the best films and scores of all time. Perhaps the previous interviews about their working relationship did not give the full picture, but I recall Shore frequently talking about how collaborative the process was. Even on The Hobbit, Jackson would mention Shore being ‘very good natured’ and again Shore mentioned their collaboration (for example, Jackson pushing the music for Smaug to sound more Eastern). If Peter’s comments above were referring to Shore, I wonder how he got that impression. Perhaps he thinks the composing and orchestration process takes too long for a traditional composer such as Shore, and he prefers the way a DAW composer can send him pieces very quickly. This might lead Jackson to think traditional composers aren't as cooperative - because they can't iterate as quickly. I wonder if he felt Shore was pushing back in self-interest to Jackson wanting to use tracked music that doesn’t make sense in the new context (the Nazgul and Gondor Reborn theme in AUJ) or wanting to reprise the Misty Mountain Song melody in films 2 or 3 (if it was the case that Jackson wanted this and Shore did not).
 
The part of the interview about LOTR was quite enjoyable regardless. It starts at 23:37, and there were a few things I hadn’t heard before.
 
 

Yep. 🤦‍♂️
 
Anyway, I hope they'll eventually release the 48fps versions of the Hobbit films. I know I'm in the minority, but I thought it looked great. 

Now would be the perfect time to release The Hobbit CR's, with the LOTR CR's having just been re-released and the Amazon show coming.. I hope it'll happen soon.

Came across this making of ‘The Last Goodbye’ video.
 
 
 
Does this come from the Appendices? I don’t recall seeing this before. Enjoyed watching it!
 
A couple of interesting things I noticed in the video:
 
There was someone on set playing flute with Billy, when they were shooting Pippin’s song in ROTK. I’m curious who that person is and why they have a flute! (2:45) Billy came up with the initial melody the night before filming that scene! And interestingly you can hear how it had the same shape and rhythm, but different notes. They must have gone on to improve it for the ADR sessions. The Last Goodbye went through several different iterations, and I think the worked paid off. I find the song closes off the series in a very fitting way. Howard Shore actually suggested they use Victoria Kelly for the orchestrations and arrangement (5:25). I had assumed Shore wasn’t asked to be involved with the writing or orchestration of the Hobbit songs. As Doug mentioned previously, he did have some oversight of this song but declined to be credited on it. This is from Kelly’s website:  
https://victoriakellymusic.com/2016/09/04/the-last-goodbye/
 
 
 
Nice to see them back at Abbey Road with the LSO!
 
 
The music video was nicely put together too - I wonder how cool it would be for a LOTR fan to have seen this before seeing the Hobbit movies. Say we could go back to 2010 and show it someone, I imagine they would be rather excited for the new trilogy!

Came across this making of ‘The Last Goodbye’ video.
 
 
 
Does this come from the Appendices? I don’t recall seeing this before. Enjoyed watching it!
 
A couple of interesting things I noticed in the video:
 
There was someone on set playing flute with Billy, when they were shooting Pippin’s song in ROTK. I’m curious who that person is and why they have a flute! (2:45) Billy came up with the initial melody the night before filming that scene! And interestingly you can hear how it had the same shape and rhythm, but different notes. They must have gone on to improve it for the ADR sessions. The Last Goodbye went through several different iterations, and I think the worked paid off. I find the song closes off the series in a very fitting way. Howard Shore actually suggested they use Victoria Kelly for the orchestrations and arrangement (5:25). I had assumed Shore wasn’t asked to be involved with the writing or orchestration of the Hobbit songs. As Doug mentioned previously, he did have some oversight of this song but declined to be credited on it. This is from Kelly’s website:  
https://victoriakellymusic.com/2016/09/04/the-last-goodbye/
 
 
 
Nice to see them back at Abbey Road with the LSO!
 
 
The music video was nicely put together too - I wonder how cool it would be for a LOTR fan to have seen this before seeing the Hobbit movies. Say we could go back to 2010 and show it someone, I imagine they would be rather excited for the new trilogy!

An enjoyable balanced review of the Hobbit trilogy, though mostly focusing on the positives.
 
Nice to see ‘Feast of Starlight’ getting a specific mention!

An enjoyable balanced review of the Hobbit trilogy, though mostly focusing on the positives.
 
Nice to see ‘Feast of Starlight’ getting a specific mention!

What I meant to say yesterday: 
please let it be known that Howard Shore fans would be content with a similar arrangement for the Hobbit scores.
 
@Doug Adams
@Jim Ware
 
 

I was a Project Consultant on this release.  It's my first real credit, and first paying gig in the field, actually.  If anyone was wondering why I stopped posting as frequently this spring, this is why.  Mike and I worked our butts off to make this set as good as it could possibly be.
 
And yes, one thing I did was proof-read the (many!) liner notes

I think this is the biggest gathering of JWFan ever!
 
 

The original intention was to use the Shire theme over the Hobbit title.  I don't think it was recorded.

Hello!
 
I am a huge fan of Justin Hurwitz and can't wait for his next score. Anyone else?

It is finally here!
 
Just the first few bars and - wow, this is completely different to what I was expecting!
 
I figured it would start with AUJ material and the material would just be edits of the scores as heard on album. But it starts with a new arrangement of Smaug’s theme!
 
 
Notes about the video:
It is a very strange video player, I seem to have no option to scrub through the video — only play on pause it. Unfortunately the audio quality is quite poor. It is hard to tell how good the orchestra is because of the quality, certainly doesn't sound anywhere near as good as LPO/NZSO. (update: it lets me scrub through, and there is now a HQ option)
 
 
I would suggest waiting to hear this in good quality - perhaps it will get a CD release eventually. Couldn't stop myself from listening though - how exciting it is to hear new Howard Shore middle earth arrangements!
 
 
Ha, the way the drums are played in this performance it makes The Wooland Realm theme sound like a dance! It kind of dig it ☺️.
 
Planning to watch the whole concert - I'm so far enjoying the pieces from his scores that I hadn't heard before. Nice to see him conducting too!
 
So it appears... they have only released recordings for two of the four movements!