The Howard Shore Middle Earth Score Showdown Poll! (An Unexpected Journey vs Fellowship of the Ring, musically)

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

13 hours ago, SafeUnderHill said:

It's part of the process, and many were involved I think - Pope, Sizemore, members of Shore's team, members of NZ team, the film editors.

 

But you should say Shore scored the film, it refers to the composer. Otherwise it suggests he co-composed with Pope.

 

Verb: score

"Compose the music for (a film or play):"

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/score

 

Where do you draw the line? Of course Shore WROTE the music, but on the podium, I strongly assume changes are made to bars, to orchestration (that we know as a fact), maybe arrangement, which obviously affects the composition.

 

Say what you want, but in BotFA, more so than in DoS (a lot more), you hear that it was someone else laying the touches on Shore's music. And that's a big reason why

a lot of it feels off, in the sense that it doesn't segue into the FotR sound, like, at all. BotFA is, in terms of sound, miles away from it, even more so than DoS.

 

I almost don't dare say it, but BotFA sounds like Pope beefing up Shore's orchestration sketches because he thought they were too plain, when in fact, this surgical precision in orchestration choices - using what you need to achieve a certain sound - is what made LotR and AUJ so special. BotFA's orchestrations sound often so same-y to me. And that's really the point where Pope tried to think Shore's thoughts, and that's where lots of Middle-Earth authenticity was lost.

[Jay 37,364]

9 minutes ago, gkgyver said:

Say what you want, but in BotFA, more so than in DoS (a lot more), you hear that it was someone else laying the touches on Shore's music. And that's a big reason why

a lot of it feels off, in the sense that it doesn't segue into the FotR sound, like, at all. BotFA is, in terms of sound, miles away from it, even more so than DoS.

 

I agree with what you say about the end product here - like totally agree. But you're speculating about the why and how.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I do wonder how much "responsibility" Pope may have taken to "improve" some things... it doesn't seem totally unlikely....

 

It's pretty undeniable that you can hear many things in the orchestration of DOS and BOTFA that Shore just probably would not at all do himself.  Perhaps Pope didn't deem Shore's music worthy of the old "small paper to big paper" hands-off treatment. 

 

Whatever the reasons (and however ridiculous they possibly are), it's a shame.

[Incanus 5,715]

12 minutes ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

I do wonder how much "responsibility" Pope may have taken to "improve" some things... it doesn't seem totally unlikely....

 

It's pretty undeniable that you can hear many things in the orchestration of DOS and BOTFA that Shore just probably would not at all do himself.  Perhaps Pope didn't deem Shore's music worthy of the old "small paper to big paper" hands-off treatment. 

 

Whatever the reasons (and however ridiculous they possibly are), it's a shame.

I wonder if the generally thicker sound is just due to a mix or did Pope's orchestrations also have something to do with it. I am hearing more of the generic action blockbuster sound in BotFA in places, whether that is just due to PJ giving Shore directions or Pope doing adjustments to the score according to PJ's specifications.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

It's a pretty badly recorded and mixed score, at least in parts.  That doesn't help.  And the conducting is decidedly un-Shoreian.

 

The point is, it's too bad Pope had to be involved.  Whether it was honest misunderstanding, deliberate meddling with things that didn't need fixing, or poor directives from PJ, he and some others definitely seemed to not "get" this music and marred it a bit.

 

But perhaps this is a bit too much conjecture, etc.  How did I get into the Tolkien section?!

[Incanus 5,715]

12 minutes ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

But perhaps this is a bit too much conjecture, etc.  How did I get into the Tolkien section?!

It's a dangerous business, TPG, going out your door to JWFan. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

[gkgyver 1,645]

I really don't think PJ has something to do with the different orchestration. I honestly don't even think he knows and hears the difference, he just says it needs more oomph, or more emotional or whatever. I think he said that numerous times.

 

There are times when Pope gets them pretty spot on, which means he knows how to do it, and then again, it veers off severely. Just listen to the Shire stuff in AUJ compared to BoTFA. It sounds off. And, pardon me for my brashness, the Shire stuff should be among the easiest things to get right for an orchestrator as prolific as Pope.

I still hear those awful awful piccolo rips he tried in the DoS featurette. I really don't think someone trying to channel Howard Shore would do that.

 

I think there is more sincerity to the slightly dismissive comments by Pope than some would like.

 

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I'm sure Pope was little more then a glorified copyist on these scores.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

3 hours ago, Stefancos said:

I'm sure Pope was little more then a glorified copyist on these scores.

 

There is reason to think otherwise!  Even just in the notation of the score itself, one sees things that are far more common in a Williams conductor score than a Shore one. 

 

And even as conductor he was in a position to do things "wrong," frankly. 

[Kühni 485]

17 hours ago, Jay said:

But you're speculating about the why and how.

 

True, but if you have been at listening to these scores, analysing and discussing them, with all the sources available to us, as long as Georg, myself et al. have been, then an educated guess is likely to hit not too far off the mark. He said that LotR and AUJ are all cut from the same cloth and sound like it...whereas DoS and (his emphasis) TABA don't.

 

That is, unless somebody in the real know can provide facts than either will corroborate that educated guess/speculation or disprove it. I'd be fine with either, since I like facts! 

[Jay 37,364]

Just now, Kühni said:

He said that LotR and AUJ are all cut from the same cloth and sound like it...whereas DoS and (his emphasis) TABA don't.

 

That's the part I agree with!

He's speculating about the true extent of Pope's alterations from what Shore would have done in his place.

[Kühni 485]

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

He's speculating about the true extent of Pope's alterations from what Shore would have done in his place.

 

I know. Which is why I added the bit about somebody providing facts (about actually changed approaches in orchestration, conducting, recording during Pope's involvement). Perhaps Doug can shed some light on this in his book (or perhaps he can't...we can't know how much of the "bones" from which this particular soup has been made we'll be allowed to see, to paraphrase Tolkien himself).

[Jay 37,364]

Would a leak of DOS and BOFA sketches in Shore's handwriting count as the facts you want?  So you could compare what he sketched to the final recorded track to see what Pope might have changed?

[Kühni 485]

.

[Jay 37,364]

I personally feel (with no evidence to back this up) that Shore felt slighted after so much of his original ideas were jettisoned by PJ late into the AUJ post-production, and he just got sick of working with the guy and a big reason he wanted to stay in NY was to not have to directly interact with PJ anymore.

 

I am hopeful someday he'd be interested in assembling some kind of 2-3 hour program of how he would have handled the score for the original film without director changes, and get that recorded.  The Hobbit Symphony if you will.  That'd be cool.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

It really is a shame how that relationship went south.  I can't be the only one who, coming off of Return of the King, thought (hoped?) we had the next Spielberg/Williams decades-long collaboration on our hands.

[Jay 37,364]

Honestly I think PJ just started losing his mind and his former great directing instincts somewhere during the TTT post production.  ROTK, King Kong, and TH trilogy are all messy at times and just feel like he couldn't make up his mind about scenes and flow right up until release day

 

I kind of wish he let someone else on the time handle the EEs, and that person put back in more of the scenes (and music) PJ took out

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I am very, very interested to see what PJ does next with Middle-Earth well and truly behind him.  I don't think it's gonna be Tintin, despite what IMDB might say.

[Barnald 365]

I reckon it was a case of PJ not wanting to go to London for a few weeks so late in the post-production stage (you look at the making-of DoS and BotFA, with them going right until the last minute, and wonder how the hell he could have done it). Wanting it all 'in-house', so to speak, he wished it to be moved to Wellington, and Shore - for various reasons (perhaps including the AUJ issues, perhaps being miffed that his traditional process was being changed, perhaps not enthused by the long flights) - didn't want to go there for that length of time. If anything, I have to think Shore is a true professional - a trooper - and can't see him throwing his toys out the pram and being the one who initiated the change. I'd say it was more likely to be a PJ directive.

[Kühni 485]

.

[Barnald 365]

And of course, despite the Reddit denial, we cannot forget that Howard did in fact turn up to conduct BotFA personally, only to be physically ejected from Wellington Town Hall and have his baton forcibly torn from his grasp by Sir Conrad of Pope. The heart was clearly willing to a point.

[Kühni 485]

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[Jay 37,364]

Did Shore conduct that final cue that was recorded in February 2015?

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Jay 37,364]

Aw yea good point

[KK 3,307]

No, I don't think so.

 

As for all the Shore/Pope speculation, I think it's hard to deny that Pope didn't take any liberties with the material, particularly in BOTFA. I feel like he worked a lot more closely with Shore's sketches in DoS, and really tried to grasp Shore's techniques. I also believe Shore's sketches were more detailed for the larger set pieces at that film. With BOTFA, Pope brought in more generic performance/orchestration qualities common to other blockbusters, possibly due to a combination of instructions by PJ, Shore's lessened enthusiasm with the film and whatnot.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[KK 3,307]

It's a bit of an exaggeration, but there are moments where traditional Shore action rhythms are just orchestrated in a very un-Shore-an way. With the bass being at the forefront, the rhythms having little modulation, the percussion sounding as dry as a tin can (something that Shore would usually be very particular about...I mean this is a guy who's rumoured to have spent an hour trying to get the Bodhran sound right in a concert rehearsal). Will quote specific examples later.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

We really should not forget that parts of DoS were at first conceived as part of AUJ, and as such, were most likely far along in the orchestration/composition process of Shore mid-2012, so that Pope probably had little to do, other than conforming it to picture. This explains why DoS is still closer to LotR than BotFA. 

For BotFA, Shore's sketches had to be orchestrated completely by Pope, and it shows, and you can hear it. If you're even just a little tuned into Shore's style, you don't need handwritten sketches to realize this.

And if Shore's sketches are still the same as shown in Doug's book, with 4 staves, then there is plenty of room for interpretation. My gripe is that, as a professional orchestrator with such skills, Pope must have had little problem getting Shore's ways, and he still deviated quite a bit.

 

I really want to know what the reason was for the change after AUJ. If it's true that Shore wrote a crapton of new themes for AUJ, and PJ had the majority of them thrown out, and replaced with LotR stuff because they weren't deemed strong enough, by whomever, then the reason could be anything, from "let us help you concentrate on composing" to "we will keep you, but we will hire someone to make your music sound more modern". Depending on how cynical you are, it could even mean the same.

In BotFA, I miss that really weighty Shore sound, with thick brass chords, horns, strings, trombones on top of that ... It's often very flight-y, and I can't help but think that Pope felt this block-chording, which is a big part of Shore's music, was a bit below him.

 

[Jim Ware 526]

3 hours ago, gkgyver said:

We really should not forget that parts of DoS were at first conceived as part of AUJ, and as such, were most likely far along in the orchestration/composition process of Shore mid-2012, so that Pope probably had little to do, other than conforming it to picture. This explains why DoS is still closer to LotR than BotFA. 

 

Not really.  The only parts of DoS that were written and orchestrated for AUJ were the High Fells, the Woodland Realm (up to the barrel escape) and Gandalf in Dol Guldur.  Only one of these (the High Fells) was recorded for AUJ and all were revised extensively and reorchestrated for DoS.

[Jay 37,364]

Haha I told you there was no chance the Woodland Realm stuff was recorded!

[gkgyver 1,645]

What I would give to hear the pure Shore orchestration for the Woodland Realm ...

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Barnald 365]

Another item to add to the list for the impending great raid.

[gkgyver 1,645]

We're not looking for single items. We are looking to raid every computer and physical medium in our reach, until the last disc.

[Barnald 365]

It's certainly easier that way

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

On 07/04/2016 at 7:11 AM, TheGreyPilgrim said:

It's pretty undeniable that you can hear many things in the orchestration of DOS and BOTFA that Shore just probably would not at all do himself.

 

Could you point some of these out?

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I can comb for specific moments later, but for one thing, doesn't it seem like a lot of the "manifesto" aleatory started to be accompanied or altogether replaced by more familiar things like "random 1/4 bends" and "repeat pattern ad lib" and the like?  I've never seen Shore achieve his aleatoric textures like that, but it's all over other scores.  And it isn't even just a notational difference, because the sonic result is absolutely different. 

 

I remember that it's something that struck me and many others, the lack of that very particular "twittering" sound that had become so tied in with these scores.  It's part of the overall "leanness" of the original sound that seemed to disappear a bit in favor of more massed sounds.  Could Shore have been using tricks he just normally hadn't before?  Maybe, but it would be odd that he decide to do that in the middle of the series, with AUJ still having plenty of those passages.  It seems a lot more like someone adding things (mostly dime-a-dozen "avant-garde"-isms) in over the manifesto passages, or rendering them in different ways altogether.

[Incanus 5,715]

I blame James Sizemore!

[KK 3,307]

I've been revisiting these scores over the last few days, and you can definitely hear more streamlining of Shore's usual avant-grade techniques. Having said that, I don't think the Manifesto was entirely discarded, at least not in DoS, as some passages still ring true to that familiar sound (that and we saw a picture of the Manifesto instructions from the recording sessions that year). But by BotFA it does start to sound different.

[Jim Ware 526]

The manifesto is all over BotFA from the first bar of Fire and Water.  It is open to interpretation by both conductor and orchestra, which may go toward explaining the perceived differences.

 

8 hours ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

I can comb for specific moments later, but for one thing, doesn't it seem like a lot of the "manifesto" aleatory started to be accompanied or altogether replaced by more familiar things like "random 1/4 bends" and "repeat pattern ad lib" and the like?  I've never seen Shore achieve his aleatoric textures like that, but it's all over other scores.  And it isn't even just a notational difference, because the sonic result is absolutely different. 

 

Shore uses quarter tone bends and ad-lib instructions in addition to the manifesto on various occasions.

[gkgyver 1,645]

12 hours ago, TheGreyPilgrim said:

I can comb for specific moments later, but for one thing, doesn't it seem like a lot of the "manifesto" aleatory started to be accompanied or altogether replaced by more familiar things like "random 1/4 bends" and "repeat pattern ad lib" and the like?  I've never seen Shore achieve his aleatoric textures like that, but it's all over other scores.  And it isn't even just a notational difference, because the sonic result is absolutely different. 

 

I remember that it's something that struck me and many others, the lack of that very particular "twittering" sound that had become so tied in with these scores.  It's part of the overall "leanness" of the original sound that seemed to disappear a bit in favor of more massed sounds.  Could Shore have been using tricks he just normally hadn't before?  Maybe, but it would be odd that he decide to do that in the middle of the series, with AUJ still having plenty of those passages.  It seems a lot more like someone adding things (mostly dime-a-dozen "avant-garde"-isms) in over the manifesto passages, or rendering them in different ways altogether.

 

I can't put it in that many sophisticated words, but the thing that makes BotFA different from the rest, and which almost ruins some forceful passages for me is the use of small sounding string patterns, rhythmic patterns, that stick out like a sore thumb in the entire sextology. That's just not what these scores are. There are moments like Bred For War that come really close to the original sound, but those are far in between.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[gkgyver 1,645]

Bred for War, 0:18-0:34, and again at 1:50.

Close miced string patterns aren't really Shore Middle Earth style.

Clouds Burst 0:20-0:50, 2:55-end.

Battle For The Mountain 0:20-0:40. And if I'm honest, the tragic piece of music preceding the awesome Dain statement doesn't sound like Shore Middle Earth too.

Though I will stress again that the statement of Dain's theme in Battle For The Mountain rivals any moment in LotR.

[Kühni 485]

7 hours ago, Jim Ware said:

It is open to interpretation by both conductor and orchestra, which may go toward explaining the perceived differences.

 

This provides, in all likelihood, a good part of the needed explanation. HS often pointed out how the LPO was an integral part of the sound of Middle-earth (I think he said something along those lines in the AUJ Behind-the-Scenes video?), and I would speculate that after four scores of considerable length, the orchestra was more, heh, "in tune" with Shore's style. When the switch to an NZ orchestra (plus the obvious changes in the orchestration and conducting department) happened, I presume Shore might ever so slightly have adapted his composition to use some of the strength of that new orchestra.

 

Doug said something along those lines on his blog, let me see if I can dig it up...

 

EDIT: Found it!

 

(This was posted on Doug's blog in, I think, early 2013):

 

>> Music question: To my ears, AUJ, while inhabitating the same musical world as LotR, sounds subtly different. Being musically rather illiterate, I find it hard to put into words, so I'll try to sum it up thusly: It's Middle-Earth by way of Hugo.

How would you say HS's style has evolved since the early 2000s? Are there certain techniques, ways he structures his themes, new harmonic/rhythmic developments etc. that he didn't have 10-12 years ago?

Mucho apreciado, I hopo you are wello,
CK

 

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  Doug Adams Mod  ChrK • 3 years ago

  I think know what you're saying re: Hugo.

  It probably boils down to Bilbo's fussy theme, which includes a very simple chord progression that moves from D minor to A major (or i-V, if you're into that sort of thing). This progression suggests the harmonic minor scale, which raises the seventh degree a half-step. (Technically, it could also be the melodic minor scale, I suppose, but we don't hear the sixth, so we don't know.) This type of harmonization was very big during the Classical and Baroque periods. The LOTR scores, however, almost always based their harmonies on pre-Baroque modes or Late Romantic chromaticism. Hugo, however, had all sorts of Classical period harmonies--they fit well with the compiled film scores that feature (diagetically) in the picture. So in that sense, yes some of The Hobbit sounds a bit Hugo-y.

  I'm not sure we'd call it an evolution of Shore's style necessarily. It sounds to me like a response to Bilbo's ways ... he's extremely conservative at the beginning of the story--and a bit old fashioned in his ways, so it makes sense for his theme to stand outside of the score's grammar just a little bit. It's a neat little trick, actually!

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    ChrK  Doug Adams • 3 years ago

    Indeed, some of the Bilbo music did strike me as more classical than LotR. I noticed it during my first listen in the second half of "An Unexpected Party" (with the down-going arpeggios in the strings at 2:22 and even more with the little grace notes [?] at 3:23 and later).

    However, there is one moment in the score where it basically screams "HUGO!". If you listen to the pounding timpani at 1:17 in "Brass Buttons", it's almost exactly the same phrase as in Hugo's "A Ghost in the Station" (from 2:41 onwards). An interesting case of "cross-pollination"... ;-)

    Also: from the official "Making of" video, in which HS mentions how the score was written for the LPO and how LotR was created specifically for those players. With DoS being done by the NZSO, what effect does this change have (or might have) in terms of the actual composition/orchestration etc.? This is simply something I never could "grasp", how a piece of music could be tied to an orchestra or recording studio.

    That's all for today. My dissertation needs adding of text... Thanks again for your time, Doug!

     

     

     
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    Doug Adams Mod  ChrK • 3 years ago

    >>> Also: from the official "Making of" video, in which HS mentions how the score was written for the LPO and how LotR was created specifically 
    for those players. With DoS being done by the NZSO, what effect does this change have (or might have) in terms of the actual composition/orchestration etc.? This is simply something I never could "grasp", how a piece of music could be tied to an orchestra or recording
    studio.>>>

    In very basic terms, it's like this: when Shore recorded Eclipse, he had a beautiful viola section to work with -- great players, great instruments -- so he wrote a lot of viola lines. When writing for the LPO, he stressed the sounds that he particularly loved there as well -- cor Anglais, solo trumpet, the divisi celli, etc. (It's also important to note here that the membership of the LPO fluctuated from year to year and season to season, so it's not as if each Rings score stressed the same favorites. Shore was always listening and responding.)

    When he works with the NZSO, I'm sure he'll have his favorite sections/players as well, and will stress those in the Smaug score. It's all the same process; should be a pretty seamless transition!<<

[SafeUnderHill 205]