The Hobbit: Four Movements for Symphony Orchestra by Howard Shore

[Wojo 2,456]

37 minutes ago, Jay said:

All you have to do if you go to a concert and want to listen to it again later is install an audio recording app on your phone, begin recording just before the concert starts, put your phone face down on the floor, enjoy the concert without thinking about it, turn the recording off when its over.

 

Make sure your GPS is on so when you totally forget about it and kick it, your wife can find your phone. 

[BloodBoal 7,540]

[Wojo 2,456]

Or leave your seat at intermission to tinkle and some takes it. 

[crocodile 8,365]

Or cough uncontrollably.

 

Karol

[toothless 971]

I'm afraid I won't be able to attend the Event at the Cinémathèque Française with Howard Shore after all. So, I won't be able to tell you about that… 

But I look forward to the concert tomorrow evening !

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Chen G. 4,405]

It doesn't sound outlandish to me to attach it to the beginning of the Lord of the Rings symphony going forward. Not that I think Howard will ever actually approve of that .

[toothless 971]

Wait ! I'll attend the concert tonight !It's the conference on monday that I wont be able to  http://www.cinematheque.fr/intervention/1374.html

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Chen G. 4,405]

It's obviously a clunky translation, but I cannot help but wonder what he means by "I have it all written down." I remember him making similar remarks soon after Lord of the Rings. Since he works with the books themselves first, there is nothing stopping him from writing themes in advance. Not for work, you understand, but for sport.

 

I sure would love to him take on "The great tales" of the Silmarilion. They fit his operatic sensibilities the most, better than The Hobbit did.

 

Its certainly not too far fetched!

[Doug Adams 494]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

It's obviously a clunky translation, but I cannot help but wonder what he means by "I have it all written down."

 

He means part of him feels like saying, "I've done it all--written all I'm going to about Middle-earth. That's it. No more," while another part remains intrigued by the possibility of doing something else. 

[toothless 971]

What a great evening !

I'll try to write a review tomorrow  But a good concert with some cues I was not familiar with. Also nice interviews of Shore about his process and his career, etc. If you have any questions, please ask. Although I'm sure I won't have the musical capacity to answer you. As I already said I'm a huge film music fan, I have a good ear and so on, but I don't know anything about theory. Shore conducted one piece during the concert and stayed on the scene when Ludwig Wicki was conducting the other pieces.

 

What's also great is that Howard Shore new CD was on sale and we could have him sign it ! I also took some pictures  It was a really nice way to end the evening.

By the way I remember reading (I think it was @Will) that you would not know what to say if you met John WIlliams and you would be afraid to be categorized as a SW fan and that's all… well… There are several things I would have liked to discuss with Shore. After all he is with Williams one of my favorite composer. But all I managed to says was "I went to four LOTR LTP concerts and there were all as great as tonight concert" with the poorest and dullest english accent possible (I have a pretty good accent usually.) DAMN ! 

[BloodBoal 7,540]

"I vent too for Lawrd Off Ze Ringz Laive-Too-Projection conssertz and zere vere hole az grate az tonite conssert!"

 

[toothless 971]

Pretty much, yeah.   Actually he responded "hahaha thank you" which I translated into "Oh god…"  

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[toothless 971]

Yes In the next few days ! 

 

[toothless 971]

I'm sorry I completely forgot to write my review and I'm afraid now it would not be really detailed  I found some videos of the concert on youtube (none of which are about the hobbit but, again, I did not want to create a specific thread for 3 videos). I don't have the time to watch right now so I don't know if the quality is great.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hIsu4BVMcY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8eRBUtrCm8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wQ-QWs_QWk

 

[gkgyver 1,647]

Found this on youtube:

 

 

 

This is an odd concert, the choices are weird and kind of random. Looks like an abbreviated form of Live To Projection. Was this a one time thing?

[SafeUnderHill 205]

[Barnald 395]

On 9/27/2016 at 3:52 PM, Jay said:

Howard Shore is conducting this himself on Saturday in Spain

 

http://www.howardshore.com/fimucite-x-the-music-of-howard-shore/

 

 

 

Er, actually while it says "Guest Conductor: Howard Shore" it doesn't specify which pieces he'll conduct.

 

Do we know what pieces make up "The Fellowship of The Ring – Suite"?

 

This is the same event right? It's being televised tomorrow night: http://elanillounico.com/rtve-canarias-emitira-el-sabado-el-concierto-la-musica-de-howard-shore/

 

This is apparently the first time it will be shown according to that. And unless I've missed something, we still haven't heard that Hobbit piece in full right, in good quality? Hopefully someone in Spain can help us out, though knowing our luck they'll probably skip Act I and go straight to Act II...

[Chen G. 4,405]

Shore should just put these four movements into The Lord of the Rings Symphony.

[The Great Gonzales 6,041]

Middle-Earth: A 10 Movement ___

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,362]

20 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Shore should just put these four movements into The Lord of the Rings Symphony.

 

Is that even performed anymore?

[The Great Gonzales 6,041]

4 hours ago, Stefancos said:

 

Is that even performed anymore?

Yes, It was performed last year (or earlier this year), it was listed on Shore's offical website.

It was performed in Boston last year:

https://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/86841

[Chen G. 4,405]

Occasionally, there’s a four night “cycle” starting with the Symphony and following with each film live to projection.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,362]

Glad to hear it. I hope to oneday catch a performance of the symphony thats more satisfying that the one I attended in Antwerpen.

[Chen G. 4,405]

Yeah.

 

Generally, I like to watch a full film live to projection than I do a suite from the film's soundtrack, but I'd never say that the availability of live-to-projection shows makes the symphony redundant. There's something to be said for a two-hour musical "summary" or "abstract" of the work. Essentially, that's what most OSTs (if they're any good) are.

[bollemanneke 3,529]

Except that the symphony contains some lame alternates.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,362]

So?

 

My main beef with the symphony is still that they cut out the climax from Khazad Dum.

[Jurassic Shark 12,801]

I guess they're saving that for The LOTR Symphony: The Extended Edition.

[Chen G. 4,405]

2 hours ago, Stefancos said:

My main beef with the symphony is still that they cut out the climax from Khazad Dum.

 

I miss some of the highlights of Return of the King: The Charge of the Rohirrim and the unabridged destruction of the ring. Oddly enough, when suites from the individual films are played, the latter of the two pieces is featured:

 

 

Now imagine the catharsis of hearing that at the end of The Lord of the Rings Symphony. For my money, you'd sandwich the four movements from The Hobbit after "The Prophecy" and "The Shire" and place this instead of the OSTs destruction of the ring, which it currently features.

[The Great Gonzales 6,041]

I would keep the version that is there now (with the payoff of the Fellowship theme), but extend it with that full fanfare into Gondor Reborn.

[SUH 65]

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!

 

Spoiler

Shire theme meets 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)

 

Spoiler

Just wonderful to hear a new arrangement of Bard the Leader theme after all these years! That is one of his most beautiful melodies from the trilogy IMO.

 

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!

 

Spoiler

Holy cow. He has included unreleased music from the Laketown attack sequence, when it cuts to the dwarves and bilbo watching the chaos from afar.

 

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!

[Chen G. 4,405]

Fantastic! 

 

Beyond the Forest really needs Grace Davidson, though.

 

Edit: Shore has decided to add a ratchet to the orchestration of the Riders of Rohan. Neat!

[Barnald 395]

The Shire theme there almost certainly points towards some kind of alternate (either actual or from early drafts) for the opening of BotFA? Do we know if there actually exists a recorded alternate of that?

 

Just got to the Bard stuff (parts reminiscent of Ironfoot), this is terrific.

[The Great Gonzales 6,041]

3 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Shore has decided to add a ratchet to the orchestration of the Riders of Rohan. Neat!

Is that the cue when they corner the Three Hunters?

[KK 3,308]

Did Shore arrange this?

 

It's a little haphazard, isn't it? There seems to be all sorts of motivic ideas and cells re-arranged, and some of the flourishes seem to come from earlier drafts of the scores we haven't heard. But there isn't really much direction to the first movement though, musically, and the ensemble doesn't do the material great justice.

[The Great Gonzales 6,041]

Some of this includes stuff in the film not on the CD (for example some of Fire and Water)

[Chen G. 4,405]

4 hours ago, KK said:

there isn't really much direction to the first movement though, musically.

 

I’m not sure we’re hearing the unabridged movement: the broadcast seems to have skipped through some material.

 

5 hours ago, Falafel said:

Is that the cue when they corner the Three Hunters?

 

Yep.

[Jim Ware 536]

13 hours ago, Barnald said:

The Shire theme there almost certainly points towards some kind of alternate (either actual or from early drafts) for the opening of BotFA? Do we know if there actually exists a recorded alternate of that?

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

[The Great Gonzales 6,041]

https://mobile.twitter.com/GuillermoAtreus?p=s

[gkgyver 1,647]

It's actually really good I think, the arrangement.

It's not just OST tracks glued together like the LotR Symphony, it's rearranged and slightly altered I think. I like it a lot, especially the arrangement of Tauriel and Kili's themes.

But yes, the performancd is not great.

[Incanus 5,785]

On 10/25/2018 at 9:24 PM, gkgyver said:

It's actually really good I think, the arrangement.

It's not just OST tracks glued together like the LotR Symphony, it's rearranged and slightly altered I think. I like it a lot, especially the arrangement of Tauriel and Kili's themes.

But yes, the performancd is not great.

Ditto. Although I wish Shore had included some music from the first film as well. Now the suite seems focused on DoS and BotFA.

[Chen G. 4,405]

We aren't hearing the entire piece.

 

I'm sure there's stuff from the first film in it, too.

[TheUlyssesian 2,538]

Any place I can listen to this?

[Jay 38,812]

https://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/festivales-de-cine/fimucite-2016-12-10-18/4788418/

[bollemanneke 3,529]

I remember listening to that when the link first appeared, but is it me or did a lot of it sound like generic, themeless action music? Or did I just listen to the wrong part of the concert?

[Jay 38,812]

I hear The Shire theme and then Smaug's Theme, starting around 3:35

[KK 3,308]

Is this the whole thing? That first movement is a mess. Plenty of fantastic little moments butchered and sequenced in strange ways. 

[Jay 38,812]

After it ends and there is applause break it goes to the next movement and then another break and then the next, etc.

 

The solo singer performing for the Beyond The Forest material is great.

 

But overall, the orchestra doesn't quite seem up to the task of what's at hand, and the recording quality (or maybe the compression quality of the stream?) is really bad