do you have any news on how your book is comig along and what exactly will be in it, thanks

do you have any news on how your book is comig along and what exactly will be in it, thanks

do you have any news on how your book is comig along and what exactly will be in it, thanks

do you have any news on how your book is coming along and what exactly will be in it, thanks

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Originally posted by segali:
sorry about the Repetition

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What repetition?

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Originally posted by segali:
sorry about the Repetition

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Sunday is work- free. At least for some of us. Right, Doug?
But don't fear, it's worth it. And I have a feeling that TTT will outdo FOTR by a great length.

I’m just back in town now. I’ll dig into questions tonight in earnest, but for now a quick—and yes, important!—update. A couple of key people had to be away this week on personal business, so while there won’t yet be an official statement in the press, Howard just called to ask me to let you know that…

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – The Complete Recordings will be available in late October, 2006.

So spread the word. You’ve got less than three months to wait now!

Back later,

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Originally posted by Doug Adams:
Howard just called to ask me to let you know that…

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – The Complete Recordings will be available in late October, 2006.

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Yes!!! Now I just need to find a job by then!

<<The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – The Complete Recordings will be available in late October, 2006.>>

Well, that is welcome news and thanks to DA and HS for generously ending our suspense!

No need to say what a disappointment it was at the ELF convention not to have DA there in person to accost with our nagging questions!

So here is what I would have asked:
a) is there any plan for a DVD of the Ring Symphony... and is there any idea of when it might appear (just generally: a year, two, after the Complete Recordings...)?

In my opinion, it has something to do with the whole "opera is the concept" thing, and operas are telling a story, opposed to suites, which you mean I guess.
Of course Lord of the Rings, the score, is no opera in the traditional sense; it has to match the scenery and there are no actors singing and acting on stage, but the leitmotivic approach and the shape of the music are pretty much intact.

That the symphony was broken down into six movements was done simply because there are six books in Lord Of The Rings (there are three novels, each divided into two separate books).

And, be honest, isn't Lord of the Rings all about the thematic arcs and the build- up to the rather, hmm, awesome ROTK finale? You wouldn't deprive the audience of that, would you?
Isn't the musical storytelling the most important part about the score?

And by the way, great news, Doug!
I knew TTT would be out earlier, I knew it! I knew I could depend on you not waiting for the big X-mas money.
It's good to see there are still people who care about what fans say, and not release let's say a film people die to see with subpar treatment, in inferior quality, while a new, "better" version of the same film gets released for the umptiest time.

I love you Doug, I really do! One question at the moment(though hundreds more waiting to be asked): Can you tell us how long the TT: CR will be? I know FOTR's press release told us. I'm so anxious!

Martin

In my opinion, it has something to do with the whole "opera is the concept" thing, and operas are telling a story, opposed to suites, which you mean I guess.>>

TF- OK, I have a feeling you may be on the right track as far as Shore's thinking goes.

Although 1) my point was that a symphony as classically defined, it seems to me, is more than just a set of (usually 4) orchestral tone poems or suites. Those are usually more program music, than "absolute" music, right?

and 2) this is where this gets really interesting: I have learned from a course with Robert Bailey at NYU that with someone like Wagner opera and symphony sort of synthesize. Yes there is plot, drama, narrative -- call it what you will -- but there is also symphonic development of the themes. Maybe not in strict sonata form, but not either in typical "number" form a la Italian opera. Take "Tristan"... What it really is, apparently, is 3 huge movements with symphonic development, with an overarching musical architecture that could, perhaps, be performed without distinct verbal content, i.e., story, as pure music. (The vocal lines would have to be included as they are part of the symphonic polyphonic web, but in a non-verbal form). Now, I gather, Shore is somewhere in between with LotR: there is leitmotivic development and strong narrative structure, but not the Italianate aria, chorus, recitative "number" structure. He has said, somewhere, he has more affinity for Italian opera than German, yet he also implies, if not states, he is working with leitmotivic development... So my query is, since we are about to have the Complete Score as in The Film, would not a purely symphonic development of the musical themes be what the LotR Symphony might better attain and thus give a whole further dimension to the music...?

<<Of course Lord of the Rings, the score, is no opera in the traditional sense; it has to match the scenery and there are no actors singing and acting on stage, but the leitmotivic approach and the shape of the music are pretty much intact.

That the symphony was broken down into six movements was done simply because there are six books in Lord Of The Rings (there are three novels, each divided into two separate books).

And, be honest, isn't Lord of the Rings all about the thematic arcs and the build-up to the rather, hmm, awesome ROTK finale? You wouldn't deprive the audience of that, would you?

Isn't the musical storytelling the most important part about the score?>>

TF: See above... Yes, if one is using a narrative structure. But not if one is working out the musical implications of the leitmotivs. Somehow the Beethovenic symphony has certainly a dramatic impetus as well as a purely musical developmental one and thus builds to a rip roaring finale, but all in the form of primary subjects, secondary subjects, bridge passages, developmental passages, etc, etc. And that is what Wagner took to another level in his later works creating operatic symphonies, or symphonic operas, working out the implications of both genres and thus breaking down the distinction by expanding them both. No mean feat that!!

What I was hoping Shore might do with his symphony was take the dramatic, narrative, "program" music of The Film and remold it and expand it by taking it down the symphonic road... Perhaps that will yet come. This music, I am sure we all agree, is able to bear the weight of that without losing its architectural build to the RotK finale...

Being no musicologist, that is as far as I can take it. One question that has long puzzled me is: in what really does the unity of the 4 movements of a classical symphony lie? My grasp of applied musical theory is not good enough to even begin to answer that one.... But perhaps you all can see where I would like to see all this go someday.

By the way, another question I had for Professor Doug, if he is willing to entertain it: is it possible the full orchestral score of either the Symphony or the Complete Scores ever likely be published in some reasonably affordable form?

Tim Fisher

To me it seems like Shore took the film and crafted an opera around it. So it would only make sense to represent his work in chronological order, no matter in which medium.
In my opinion, the shape aka intercutting of the film doesn't destroy this structure. I think Howard Shore is a good enough composer not only to make sure it wouldn't interrupt his music, but also to give those transitions sense.

If Howard Shore indeed had an operatic work on his mind, then I have no doubt whatsoever that the score that ended up in the picture is Lord of the Rings in musical form, pretty much how Shore intended it to be, if the editors didn't tinker with it too much.

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Originally posted by Timdalf:

Being no musicologist

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For a moment there i thought you were a conductor.

<<Originally posted by Timdalf:

Being no musicologist>>

For a moment there I thought you were a conductor. >>>

No more than Frodo is a frustrated Elf!! ;-)

Seriously, nothing more than an educated consumer, or listener...

TF

To me it seems like Shore took the film and crafted an opera around it. So it would only make sense to represent his work in chronological order, no matter in which medium.>>

TF That IS the difference... The film tells a story, a narrative... pure music, esp. classical music, is not really doing that, it is following it own logic as delineated (not determined!) by key, mode, tempo, rhythm, harmonics, dynamics etc. As one website
http://solomonsmusic.net/WagRing.htm

I just read pointed out, most opera intends to illustrate the text with music, whereas Wagner really wrote the text to illustrate the music. The music dominates esp. in his later richer works. What really matters this commentator said are the musical features, not the text. Now, as many have pointed out Wagner wrote perhaps the first film scores, since most of the original film scores arise out of the compositional traditions he established and popularized. However, most film scores are mere program music, meant to illustrate the action or moods of the characters. Shore has definitely gone beyond that and created a symphonic web of melodic moments of emotion (or leitmotivs) that can flow one from and to another... but what determines that flow is the narrative of The Film... not the musical characteristics of the leitmotivs.

What, again, I am hoping for is a series of movements centered around the various realms or peoples of ME... as these seem to be the cores of the various motivs, Mordor, the Shire/Hobbits, Rohan, Minas Tirith, the Elves, etc. We apparently do not have a Frodo motiv, nor a Sam motiv, nor an Anduril motiv, nor an Eowin motiv, etc. unlike Wagner's Ring where we do have motivs related to persons and objects or even feelings (Ring, Spear, Sword/heroism/, love, murder, Nature, Siegmund, Siegfried, the Walkyries, etc.) and then these become evocative of larger or deeper aspects of the tale. And in later Wagner these motivs become so interdependent and mutually reflective that even the very narrative quality of first half of The Ring subsides into something much more organic and inextricable in Tristan, Meistersinger or Parsifal. Shore has done something post-later Wagner, surely, so this organic wholeness is there. So while following the narrative of The Film becomes one means of structuring the music, I sense there may be another in taking closely related themes and expanding on them in purely musical ways unrelated to the course of the LotR narrative...

<<In my opinion, the shape aka intercutting of the film doesn't destroy this structure. I think Howard Shore is a good enough composer not only to make sure it wouldn't interrupt his music, but also to give those transitions sense.>>

TF Certainly... but I am driving at liberating the music from the confines of the story no matter how its told. But maybe that is not how Shore is inspired, and would find that irrelevant...

<<If Howard Shore indeed had an operatic work on his mind, then I have no doubt whatsoever that the score that ended up in the picture is Lord of the Rings in musical form, pretty much how Shore intended it to be, if the editors didn't tinker with it too much.>>

TF Yes, given that his task was to illuminate The Film and its narrative... but what if he were let loose beyond that road, to wander off-road into where ever his fancy took him in the mode of the contrapuntal symphonic style initiated by his score as it is so far...

<<Shore also said that he's doing the symphony "just for the sheer joy of playing music".>>

TF And that is exactly what I am driving at... the sheer joy of playing with the themes in ways The Film might not have prompted or allowed using the developmental techniques of pure, or absolute music...