So, I suppose the forceful theme in "The End Of All Things", the one accompanying the fall of Barad- Dur, is "Evil Times" and "Sauron's Theme" in a heroic guise, which I always suspected?

I've always considered RotK the best and most thematic score of the three (and didn't find much agreement sadly). Just recently it struck me how identifiable the several storylines in RotK really are, specifically the Pelennor sequences.

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Great observations in the above posts. I agree that ROTK is wondefully thematic in a way that it ties things together and brings them to a logical conclusion and unity. I have also suspected that the Destruction of Barad Dûr theme is actually Sauron's theme/Evil times theme only in a positive guise to signal the end of Lord of the Rings and the Fullfilment of the Quest. I loved how Shore hinted at this positive theme in TTT when Gandalf and Aragorn discuss the fate of the Quest and will Frodo succeed.

At the end of RotK, the Shire material represents something different than in FotR.<HR size=1></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree with what you say. I appreciate this fact about Shore's music. It interconncets things and shows the relations of the themes and ideas behind them. The change in these ideas can be also seen in the music. There lies its great appeal to me.

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Originally posted by gkgyver:
Doug, can you give us any hints concerning the structure of TTT? Will the three separate storylines be presented as a whole or will they be intercut?

Personally, I hope they'll present each storyline as a whole.

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I think that Shore will present the music in the chronological order (i.e. intercut). As a score completist I think that is the way it should be done. Perhaps following the separate storylines would be musically satisfying to some degree but then the presentation of the music would not be faithful to the film and the thematic development goes a bit awry IMO.

But how about it Doug? Any news, any little hints of what is to come?

We’ll it’s pretty early on in the process on this one, so there’s not too much to reveal just yet. I can tell you this, however, at no time will music be cut out of film sequence and reassembled into an album-only structure.* This music was written to flow in the order in which you hear it in the film. Stitching it together in a new order would create hideously noticeable edit points; chaotically unstructured introductions and developments of material; bizarrely spaced climactic moments; and a press nightmare nonpareil when we had to explain why nothing on disc matched the plot as seen in the film. No, the music was composed to exist in the order in which it is presented on film, and at no time has any thought been given to presenting it otherwise.

The Lord of the Rings score is all about proper structuring – that’s how it reaches the intellectual and emotional peaks it does. Fear not, no one’s ever going to monkey with that.

*Now that said, you may notice a few individual pieces of music that are restructured when compared to their film counterparts. But again, this is holding to the same principle – the music will be presented as Shore composed it. If a piece was cut and jumbled in the film (which happened in just a few cases, but did happen!), then its musical and compositional integrity will be restored on disc. (“Restored” is the wrong word. In these rare cases, the pieces were recorded in the correct form, then cut up in the film. We’ll hear the composition / recording prior to editorial slicing.)

Also, plan on hearing a lot more unreleased material on this one. Yes, a LOT!

No release date is set. In fact, the window hasn’t even been narrowed yet. You’ll have TTT at the latest by the end of the year and at the earliest by… I don’t know, let’s see how long this draft of the notes takes. Seriously, I just don’t know yet, this is just my way of saying you’ll be holding another box in your hands this year.

Gotta run! More later,

Now that we've established this principle, what about the handling of extended-extended music? lol
For instance the unused music during Gandalf's resurrection (yes, I've listened to the latest FSM podcast ), will those pieces be put back into its proper space, just like in FOTR, or can we expect something ... well, separate?

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Originally posted by gkgyver:
Of course I have no idea how the music was written and recorded; and if the music, as heard in the extended cut, was actually written like that, then I've no problem with a chronological film order. I just thought that with all the editorial mayhem going on in the post- production phase of TTT, the music might have been heavily edited.
But if it's not ... all for the better!

Now that we've established this principle, what about the handling of extended-extended music? lol
For instance the unused music during Gandalf's resurrection (yes, I've listened to the latest FSM podcast ), will those pieces be put back into its proper space, just like in FOTR, or can we expect something ... well, separate?

I suspect with all the edited, alternate and unused material, TTT and ROTK are logistic nightmares, and Reprise (or whoever is in charge here) has my fullest support if more time is needed for those two scores.
My main concern was to see this whole project actually happening, which I wouldn't have dreamed of two years ago. And these three box sets are indeed more than I have expected.

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I share your sentiments and you just about summed up all my thoughts
Now that the project was started in such a grand manner with FOTR I am willing to wait for the following releases for a bit so they will be done in the best way possible. Kudos for all people involved in the project.

It does take time to do this stuff, just be paitent everyone...we had to be paitent for the Fellowship Of The Ring full score and the wait was well worth it to many of you...so we must once more be paitent for The Two Twoers score.

No doubt 6 months to a year after The Two Towers is released Return Of The King's full score will be out.

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Is was in ROTK before Shore ever scored it. But, as you’ll notice, the music for this scene was out on the ROTK OST before the Extended DVD came out. Shore scored the scene when it was still in the Theatrical ROTK.

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I had to come back to this one, sorry. Are you implying that the music for the Saruman scene is on the ROTK soundtrack? Where would that be then? Or am I misunderstanding something?

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Don’t know if Doug will cover this in his complete book but I haven’t come across it in the liner notes or anywhere else.

I think I've 'discovered' a new motive. To my knowledge it occurs twice; once in The Sword That Was Broken (1:27 - 1:50) and again in The Mirror of Galadriel (4:50 - 5:03). It's barely a motive, consisting of powerful and passionate 2 note descending brass 'blasts' and percussion.

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There is always the possibility of over analyzing the music. Good example: I noticed Shore uses pitches of a minor scale rising up and sustaining in the strings in many scenes to illustrate danger or doom but they are not exclusively used in LOTR so that does NOT count as a motif (Doug confirmed this as I asked about it).
This "motif" I am refering to can be heard e.g. in the following cues It is first heard in the Prophecy 1;16 and in the film Prologue 5;33-48. It is used in
TTT and ROTK more. It can be heard e.g. in the beginning of the track 5(0;00-> ) on the OST of ROTK and in the track 14 (4;00 - 4;12 )on TTT OST.
So there can be musical devices in the score that are not necessarily motives assigned by Shore to any specific meaning in the LOTR storyline.

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Also, plan on hearing a lot more unreleased material on this one.

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The primary result here is that there is more editing within the music itself – bars dropped here and there. Very rarely was an entire composition written, recorded and then redone. (Though I can think of two biggies off the top of my head – one of which you already know about.) Most of the music in the film was written in the order in which it currently exists. You’ll notice that the music rarely cuts off abruptly with a scene / storyline change. There’s usually a bit of overlap. Shore was writing as the film was being edited, so when scenes moved around, he generally rewrote his music well before it was taken to the recording stage,

>>>Now that we've established this principle, what about the handling of extended-extended music? lol
For instance the unused music during Gandalf's resurrection (yes, I've listened to the latest FSM podcast ), will those pieces be put back into its proper space, just like in FOTR, or can we expect something ... well, separate?>>>

It will follow the FOTR template and appear where it was meant to appear.

>>>I suspect with all the edited, alternate and unused material, TTT and ROTK are logistic nightmares, and Reprise (or whoever is in charge here) has my fullest support if more time is needed for those two scores.
My main concern was to see this whole project actually happening, which I wouldn't have dreamed of two years ago. And these three box sets are indeed more than I have expected.>>>

There are a lot of extraneous measures to be tracked down, yes indeed. I’ve got to say, however, they’re doing amazing work making sure that all the little pieces go back where they should be. It’s like a combination of a jigsaw puzzle and scavenger hunt.

>>>The project will happen. You just have to give it time. As Doug said it will be out end of this year. Probably in time for Christmas no doubt.>>>

This project is happening right now, as a matter of fact! I suspect that the lack of a current release date is owed to nothing more than an urge to let Fellowship’s sales play out. It’s selling so well right now, I don’t think anyone wants to divert attention by releasing another set too soon.

Well, that, and you know, people need to actually finish making TTT’s set!

>>>>>Also, plan on hearing a lot more unreleased material on this one.>>>

Does this mean unreleased-on-cd or unreleased-at-all?>>>

I mean never before heard by the public. Never been on CD, never been on DVD, never been in a videogame, etc. Wish I could tell you more… it’s so good, I’d much rather blather on than cut myself short. But… well, you guys know by now!

-Doug

I can remember two distinct places in TTT where there were music edits in the film itself, both which took me out of it.

One of the scenes was a pan of Rohan with the fanfare playing and the other was when water was rushing into Isengard.

I might not have noticed as much if those pieces hadn't been preserved on the soundtrack release...

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I mean never before heard by the public. Never been on CD, never been on DVD, never been in videogame, etc.

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I do have a question for you Doug, if you have the time.

In cases where there are radically different takes between two versions of a cue, will there be moments when both will be presented, or is it entirely a matter of choosing which take to use?

Is it being based upon what's on the albums (as aspects of FOTR, including the "Farewell to Lorien" track were, the theatrical version of which is beautiful... and preserved on the original CD).

Will the sequencing of this release be the same as in the first one? I mean there are no alternates and such pieces on this album but rather a full presentation (unused music included as you say) of the EE score?

>>>In cases where there are radically different takes between two versions of a cue, will there be moments when both will be presented, or is it entirely a matter of choosing which take to use?

Is it being based upon what's on the albums (as aspects of FOTR, including the "Farewell to Lorien" track were, the theatrical version of which is beautiful... and preserved on the original CD).>>>

The Lorien track was unique in that it was a case where Shore went back and rewrote the entire scene. If memory serves, the DVD version of this music was actually written first, and so the complete score uses this, the original and ultimately final version of the composition. (And I agree, the theatrical version is beautiful in a different way, and I’m thrilled it’s on the original album.) TTT doesn’t have cases where an entire sequence was rewritten like this, but there are sections within theatrical compositions that were rewritten to mesh with the DVD music. Right now, they are discussing ways to make sure people hear as much of everything as possible, but since nothing’s been finalized, there’s not much more I can say right now. Due to the nature of the music, which often segued into DVD music via aleatoric passages, it looks like it won’t be too difficult to give the listener everything in a musically (and dramatically) logical presentation.

>>>I am very curious what will the totally never-before-heard cues contain and from what scenes they are from. Your little announcements make me always more anxious to hear the new music Doug And the fact you have to keep pretty much hinting about it drives me insane with anticipation.

Will the sequencing of this release be the same as in the first one? I mean there are no alternates and such pieces on this album but rather a full presentation (unused music included as you say) of the EE score?>>>

The sequencing isn’t done, so again I can’t answer right now. But there are only a handful of “alternates” per se. Most of the “new” music will be contained in 10 to 20 bars here and there, removed from preexisting compositions, much as it was in Fellowship. In the case of longer cuts, generally the original composition was replaced by silence and / or SFX, so the music can just be reinserted into the sequence for the boxed set.

>>>Thanks again for all the news and hints Doug>>>

If you wish to make a comment about how I can have total recall of the running times of various films or know who was the orchestrator on a film made three decades ago, but screw up the names of people I correspond with, go right ahead. I deserve it.

Although very premature to say so, but I hope that there will be an Annotated Score file for the TT set on the lordoftherings-soundtrack.com website like there is currently for the FOTR set.

Nah, not my style! Glad to hear you’re not yet prone to senior moments... especially happy, just in case I’m older than you.

>>>I bought the FOTR box set a few weeks ago and love it; I play it constantly. I am so looking forward to the TT and ROTK sets. I was actually looking for release information on the TT set a few days ago and came across this forum to my delight. I have poured over the posts and, among other insightful posts, have gathered that the next set (TT) should be released sometime by the end of the year (I'm hoping sometime in the Summer myself).

Although very premature to say so, but I hope that there will be an Annotated Score file for the TT set on the lordoftherings-soundtrack.com website like there is currently for the FOTR set.>>>

Well this, at least, I can confirm. The Annotated Score will be available as a PDF on the official site just as it was with Fellowship.

>>>I too have been listening to this set constantly. Lets put it this way; the three cd's have been playing in my car non stop, looping itself over and over ever since I got it on Dec 13th. Thanks you Mr. Shore for the creation and thank you Mr. Adams and everyone one else who worked on the box set. I am completely addicted!>>>

I’m no spokesman, but it’s been our pleasure!

The last edits I heard are great. They’re taking full advantage of the generous lead-time, and really picking through the details in a careful, methodical manner. Which is not to suggest that they didn’t do the same for Fellowship, it’s just that there are just more details to dig through this time around.

>>>Aren't they tempted by this whole unused, alternate, expanded cues mayhem to basically restructure the set?>>>

No, the word “mayhem” doesn’t apply, because there’s a very clear roadmap to follow here: Shore’s written scores. In most cases, it’s simply an issue of returning things to the way Shore wrote them. To wit:

The unused pieces will simply be returned to their originally intended spots – and this is true of both passages that were excised (5 to 20 bars here and there, or whatever) and pieces that were removed in their entirety and replaced with SFX.

Entirely alternate compositions (that were eventually rewritten) will likewise be presented on disc as alternates, and thus won’t be interested into the sequence.

ROTK won’t go into production in earnest until after TTT is finished, so it’s honestly too early to think about this yet.

-Doug Adams