Howard Shore's The Desolation Of Smaug (Hobbit Part 2)

[Faleel 5,359]

But seriously, isn't ripping on the whole thing a tad premature? For instance, imagine a romantic moment between Galadriel and, of all characters, GIMLI. I mean, like... ewwwww, right? That could never work.

Thats not a romantic moment.

[Barnald 365]

Except that's not romantic...

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[crocodile 8,019]

Except that's not romantic...

I know that thing between them is... pure animal.

Karol

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Warren Peace 3]

Except that's not romantic...

Well, split that hair if you like. He calls her most beautiful, then blushes in embarassment. He considers the hairs on her head to be a supreme gift. You could do a lot worse for romance.

You, hello! Long time lurker, yadda yadda. But seriously, isn't ripping on the whole thing a tad premature? For instance, imagine a romantic moment between Galadriel and, of all characters, GIMLI. I mean, like... ewwwww, right? That could never work.

Actually, that's the exact problem I have with this: it makes the moment between Gimli and Galadriel less special.

Can't agree with you there, it's one of my favorite Gimli moments, and rounds out his little mini story with Galadriel perfectly. But the point is, people are slamming this aspect of DoS sight unseen. There are lots of ways it could go wrong, but plenty it could go right, too.

[Faleel 5,359]

Except that's not romantic...

Well, split that hair if you like. He calls her most beautiful, then blushes in embarassment. He considers the hairs on her head to be a supreme gift. You could do a lot worse for romance.

Yeah! like having the "hot dwarf" fall for Evangeline Lilly!

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

It's because of the height difference, isn't it? That's discrimination. You're all going to jail!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Incanus 5,716]

I find there is a world of difference in Gimli's love and respect for Galadriel, where the admiration was one sided, and this strange love triangle that involves Legolas, Tauriel and Kili that supposedly is in DoS.

The music is fantastic, I have no qualms about that. I am just rather apprehensive about the Dwarf-Elf relationships in general as they are completely out of boundaries of Tolkien's own vision. But perhaps PJ and the team has some other kind of purpose in mind for this relationship than merely a romantic love story, more to do with the larger issues pertaining to the isolationism of Thranduil's realm and Tauriel's wish to fight for the world and be part of it and not shut it outside.

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Barnald 365]

From this (obvious spoilers):

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/12/07/84192-a-feast-of-starlight-a-review-of-the-hobbit-the-desolation-of-smaug/

The touching musical piece that accompanies Kili and Tauriel’s theme, written by Philippa Boyens, is a mixture of Elvish and Dwarvish.

Eh? Does she mean the lyrics of Kingsfoil?

[gkgyver 1,645]

Obviously she is confusing the lyrics with the melody. I guess that's the same line of thinking that makes people think whoever sings a particular song must have written it, too. To this day, people associate My Heart Will Go On with Celine Dion, not Horner.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

I feel like much of my life has been devoted to making sure Horner gets his due credit for that.

[Incanus 5,716]

I find there is a world of difference in Gimli's love and respect for Galadriel, where the admiration was one sided, and this strange love triangle that involves Legolas, Tauriel and Kili that supposedly is in DoS.

The music is fantastic, I have no qualms about that. I am just rather apprehensive about the Dwarf-Elf relationships in general as they are completely out of boundaries of Tolkien's own vision. But perhaps PJ and the team has some other kind of purpose in mind for this relationship than merely a romantic love story, more to do with the larger issues pertaining to the isolationism of Thranduil's realm and Tauriel's wish to fight for the world and be part of it and not shut it outside.

This love triangle sounds strange because it's not in the book and so we don't really know what to expect. We will soon know how small or big, and good or bad it will be. My only advice for anyone is to give up hope of a faithful adaption, and look forward to a fun film with the characters from AUJ.

No this love story/romantc storyline sounds strange because it is strange. Period! Not a shred of Tolkien is in it no matter how they try to justify it! It is just there to provide an obligatory female character and a love story for the films since there is not one originally in the book. I think it is rather weak on the film makers' part to bow down to the demographics and film cliches in this way but what can you do.

As I said I really hope they don't go all lovey-dovey with Kili and Tauriel with wet eyes and adoring glances and all that kind of nonsense.

__________________________________________________________________________

On more positive note the score keeps growing on me more and more with each listen. Shore's music for this world is by its very nature terribly intricate and forms a constantly shifting progression that answers at times to even the tiniest story gesture. Because of this it takes quite some time to catch each and every thematic thread beyond the boldest renditions as the composer continues to vary and manipulate these ideas on various ways. Some might find this constant shifting of mood and rhythm and thematic ideas difficult to handle and would like to hear more overarching ideas play through a single piece of music but to my ears it is business as usual with the music of LotR. Shore just paints often in the smallest details and at times allows the broader brush stroke to carry the musical narrative. There are examples of both in this score.

With this music not only do you have to become familiar with the general musical shape of these leitmotifs you also have to familiarize yourself with their colours so that you can spot them in some of their less conspicious forms. I have really just been allowing this music to sink in on a more emotional level before even going "easter egg hunting for themes" as one of our esteemed members here calls it.

It is a darker score than AUJ for certain, darker and more sombre. Bilbo has left the safety of the Shire and its musical warmth largely behind him. The dwarven company is on the run and faces new and often dangerous obstacles on their journey. I would say that the wonder and awe are less in play here than in AUJ as it is a more dangerous leg of the journey but the story still allows for a whole range of colours and moods to shine from the earthy and grim music for Beorn to the exotic, dangerous and alluring Wood-Elven motifs to the worn and grim nobility of Bard the Bowman and to the half-martial/half-regal rustic pomp and shadowy feel of the Lake-Town material and finally concluding in the metallic clang of wide range of outlandish percussion that informs Smaug's themes in both sly manipulation and outright orchestral fury of the beast. Despite being a darker score than AUJ it allows for big highly entertaining and rollicking set pieces that brim with energy and new colours and very extrovert writing from Shore.

Voices continue to be an important colour in this music but they are I feel reserved for most important moments not to dilute their power much in the same way as Shore used them in AUJ. The Wood-Elves are offered a few outstanding choral crescendos and a beautiful new theme featuring a solo soprano voice but they are not represented with an outright Elven chorale as are Rivendell and Lothlorien. Theirs is a less lofty and more eerie exoticism that finds representation often in low string murmurs and delicate woodwind solos. Only in the album closing Beyond the Forest the composer fully explores their musical motifs with more prominent choral accompaniment. The new music for the House of Durin receives a humming chorus underneath with slight tone of defeat in it before the dwarven company reaches the halls of their forefathers at Erebor, where Shore offers more resolute and victorious feel in the choral voices. Still the choral music is conspiciously absent from the final showdown with Smaug up until the last minute, obviously to give the climactic moments new weight and dramatism, which I have to admit (no matter how big a fan of Shore's choral writing I am)might have been dampened somewhat if the choir had been chanting in Dwarvish for the last 20 minutes.

Thematically Shore continues to expand the palette and world of Middle Earth with a good number of new leitmotifs. Not only does expand and shift the old themes to illustrate new ideas and subtexts of the story, he has also created entirely new themes for all the new story elements now present in this uncharted patch of Wilderland. In addtion he naturally continues to juggle all the older musical ideas with great precision and true to his work has them in a constant state of fluid change.

But now I am back to walk the musical paths of Rhovanion and trying to chart my way through the Vale of Anduin and Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain through Shore's latest work!

Yours in a hurry

Incy

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Barnald 365]

Hang on blame the reviewer not me!

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Some of the people in this thread make me sick. Why would anybody be so mad about so many aspects of the film before you've even seen it? Why not wait till you've seen the damn thing before you start putting it on blast? Any going from liking a theme to hating it just because of which characters the theme is for? That is absolutely insane! Just enjoy all this wonderful music fellas! Shore has knocked this one out of the park!

I agree, im enjoying the music so far. I am really looking forward to the film, and i'm not sitting in angst fearing a beautiful theme might represent an aspect of the film i might have issues with.

How did you guys get through the Prequel years?

[Barnald 365]

We didn't care as much?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

John Williams Star Wars scores? You didnt care?

Please!

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Film reviews rarely mention the score.

[Barnald 365]

John Williams Star Wars scores? You didnt care?

Please!

I think we saw enough in The Phantom Menace to abandon all hope. I know I pretty much stopped caring after that, or at least drastically lowered my expectations.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Barnald 365]

So who will be the first one on here to see the film and dish the dirt on the music then? One of our continental European members?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Quintus 5,399]

Gkgyver will oil himself up for this.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I don't know this Lewya, and Gyver will be sitting in the cinema with a personal agenda to find fault with this movie.

[Incanus 5,716]

While you fine gentlemen wrinkle your brows at people wrinkling their brows at the movie and feeling darn good about it.

*says Mikko with a wrinkled brow*

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Jay 37,373]

I find there is a world of difference in Gimli's love and respect for Galadriel, where the admiration was one sided, and this strange love triangle that involves Legolas, Tauriel and Kili that supposedly is in DoS.

The music is fantastic, I have no qualms about that. I am just rather apprehensive about the Dwarf-Elf relationships in general as they are completely out of boundaries of Tolkien's own vision. But perhaps PJ and the team has some other kind of purpose in mind for this relationship than merely a romantic love story, more to do with the larger issues pertaining to the isolationism of Thranduil's realm and Tauriel's wish to fight for the world and be part of it and not shut it outside.

This love triangle sounds strange because it's not in the book and so we don't really know what to expect. We will soon know how small or big, and good or bad it will be. My only advice for anyone is to give up hope of a faithful adaption, and look forward to a fun film with the characters from AUJ.

No this love story/romantc storyline sounds strange because it is strange. Period! Not a shred of Tolkien is in it no matter how they try to justify it! It is just there to provide an obligatory female character and a love story for the films since there is not one originally in the book. I think it is rather weak on the film makers' part to bow down to the demographics and film cliches in this way but what can you do.

As I said I really hope they don't go all lovey-dovey with Kili and Tauriel with wet eyes and adoring glances and all that kind of nonsense.

__________________________________________________________________________

On more positive note the score keeps growing on me more and more with each listen. Shore's music for this world is by its very nature terribly intricate and forms a constantly shifting progression that answers at times to even the tiniest story gesture. Because of this it takes quite some time to catch each and every thematic thread beyond the boldest renditions as the composer continues to vary and manipulate these ideas on various ways. Some might find this constant shifting of mood and rhythm and thematic ideas difficult to handle and would like to hear more overarching ideas play through a single piece of music but to my ears it is business as usual with the music of LotR. Shore just paints often in the smallest details and at times allows the broader brush stroke to carry the musical narrative. There are examples of both in this score.

With this music not only do you have to become familiar with the general musical shape of these leitmotifs you also have to familiarize yourself with their colours so that you can spot them in some of their less conspicious forms. I have really just been allowing this music to sink in on a more emotional level before even going "easter egg hunting for themes" as one of our esteemed members here calls it.

It is a darker score than AUJ for certain, darker and more sombre. Bilbo has left the safety of the Shire and its musical warmth largely behind him. The dwarven company is on the run and faces new and often dangerous obstacles on their journey. I would say that the wonder and awe are less in play here than in AUJ as it is a more dangerous leg of the journey but the story still allows for a whole range of colours and moods to shine from the earthy and grim music for Beorn to the exotic, dangerous and alluring Wood-Elven motifs to the worn and grim nobility of Bard the Bowman and to the half-martial/half-regal rustic pomp and shadowy feel of the Lake-Town material and finally concluding in the metallic clang of wide range of outlandish percussion that informs Smaug's themes in both sly manipulation and outright orchestral fury of the beast. Despite being a darker score than AUJ it allows for big highly entertaining and rollicking set pieces that brim with energy and new colours and very extrovert writing from Shore.

Voices continue to be an important colour in this music but they are I feel reserved for most important moments not to dilute their power much in the same way as Shore used them in AUJ. The Wood-Elves are offered a few outstanding choral crescendos and a beautiful new theme featuring a solo soprano voice but they are not represented with an outright Elven chorale as are Rivendell and Lothlorien. Theirs is a less lofty and more eerie exoticism that finds representation often in low string murmurs and delicate woodwind solos. Only in the album closing Beyond the Forest the composer fully explores their musical motifs with more prominent choral accompaniment. The new music for the House of Durin receives a humming chorus underneath with slight tone of defeat in it before the dwarven company reaches the halls of their forefathers at Erebor, where Shore offers more resolute and victorious feel in the choral voices. Still the choral music is conspiciously absent from the final showdown with Smaug up until the last minute, obviously to give the climactic moments new weight and dramatism, which I have to admit (no matter how big a fan of Shore's choral writing I am)might have been dampened somewhat if the choir had been chanting in Dwarvish for the last 20 minutes.

Thematically Shore continues to expand the palette and world of Middle Earth with a good number of new leitmotifs. Not only does expand and shift the old themes to illustrate new ideas and subtexts of the story, he has also created entirely new themes for all the new story elements now present in this uncharted patch of Wilderland. In addtion he naturally continues to juggle all the older musical ideas with great precision and true to his work has them in a constant state of fluid change.

But now I am back to walk the musical paths of Rhovanion and trying to chart my way through the Vale of Anduin and Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain through Shore's latest work!

Yours in a hurry

Incy

Thanks Inky, a pleasure to read as always.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Now that people have had some time to listen to this score I wanna ask this.

In the last couple of weeks there were a lot of posters worried about the fact that the score was no longer gonna be performed by the LPO, and that Shore was working with John Williams' regular orchestrator Conrad Pope.

Can anyone hear any difference because of these 2 changes? I really can't hear that this has been performed by a different orchestra. It sounds pretty much the same as the previous four in terms of performance.

The same can be said for the orchestration. I am absolutely not an expert. I have no musician training what so ever, so I'm a layman. But I've listened to Howards Shore's music for Middle Earth many many hundreds of hours throughout the last 13 years. And it sounds like Howard Shore in his Tolkien mode. I don't hear any others musical voice in their.

So...much ado about nothing I guess.

[Incanus 5,716]

I concur. The fears about hiring orchestrator(s) (there are Conrad Pope and James Sizemore credited) and employing a new orchestra were unfounded to say the least. NZSO performs beautifully under Conrad Pope's baton and the end result sounds through and through like Howard Shore. I can detect a slight change in the sound but it can in part be chalked off to the Wellington Town Hall acoustics and of course to the individual sound of the new orchestra but it is hardly distracting in any way. I have thought about the use of a different orchestra not once since I started listening to the SE. As I said from the start it was a terrible fuss about nothing for some.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The new recording venue is probably the reason for that slight difference. Like it was with AUJ when compared to the LOTR scores.

[Dixon Hill 4,234]

From the standard edition of the score, which is all I've heard in completeness thus far, I really don't hear anything different other than the acoustics of the Wellington Town Hall, and that is a very welcome difference. Even the performance of the NZSO is totally up to specs and the LPO is never longed for at any moment. It's still Shore through and through and I'm still astonished that was ever in doubt. That is the job of a good orchestrator, after all!

[Jay 37,373]

Agreed, there is no major difference whatsoever. As usual a lot of fans here freaking out before they've ever heard/seen anything.

[Faleel 5,359]

Agreed, there is no major difference whatsoever. As usual a lot of fans here freaking out before they've ever heard/seen anything.

Most of them are OCD Shore CD credit freaks

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I know it may be a tad soon, but I already am looking forwards to what Sore has in store in TABA. I haven't even listened to the whole of DOS (mainly previews and a few tracks which sounded stunning). I think it'll feature more vocalists, sound much bigger and possible see the return of Bilbos theme!

LOL Howard Sore!

Listening to I See Fire for the very first time.

Hmmmm.....the arrangement not annoying like Song Of The Lonely Mountain. but it's utterly unremarkable. Guitar strumming and singing, the tried and tested singer/songwriter way of making a popsong. Seemingly no thematic connection with the rest of the score. And no attempt to make it fit stylistically. It's just a pop balad dumped at the tail end of a fully orchestral score.

I love all 3 the chart oriented end title songs for the LOTR trilogy. Stylistically, thematically they fit in right with Shore's music. They feel right.

This is another skipper....

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Jay 37,373]

Funny how he labeled the video "Beyond The Forest", yet he only covered the Tauriel's Theme parts and not the love theme parts.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

Richard Clayderman is back.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Funny how he labeled the video "Beyond The Forest", yet he only covered the Tauriel's Theme parts and not the love theme parts.

He covered the better half.

[publicist 4,643]

This is another skipper....

Seems like Shore will not be invited to the Jackson house for Christmas dinner anymore. This is the second time he gets shafted in the song department (and honestly, the song sounds as if nobody gave a flying fuck if it fits in with the rest of the music and it so does not), additionally delegating the whole recording process to Pope - rumour has it that Jackson is a rather 'vital' force on the sound stage, so i presume Shore is more doing his duties now with the golden LOTR days long behind.

[Alex Shore 83]

Funny how he labeled the video "Beyond The Forest", yet he only covered the Tauriel's Theme parts and not the love theme parts.

Tauriel's Theme? For me is the opening notes from "Silence of the Lambs"...

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

It actually is

[Alex Shore 83]

Its like when in the movie "Moonlight and Valentino" composed by Howard Shore you can heard the "Eowyns Theme" played by the clarinet on a bed scene...

http://youtu.be/72w_6JIAVsQ?t=8m47s

[KK 3,307]

Funny how he labeled the video "Beyond The Forest", yet he only covered the Tauriel's Theme parts and not the love theme parts.

He covered the better half.

I thought you liked the "Cadillac of the Skies" like theme?

[Barnald 365]

Come on postman...