Gregory: Glad you made it. Hope you enjoy the forum.

Gkgyver: You're just who I had in mind when I said, 'someone' could help him. Thanks for the input.

Doug: I knew you were 'holding back' stuff and I think it's a great idea. It's really not even a matter of holding back... it's more a matter of providing the info needed for the time and place. The book will be the place for the most detailed observations and rightly so.

Yeah, I'm glad they went with Sindarin instead of English for those three other songs... "May It Be", "Gollum's Song", and "Into the West."

No, really - I don't have any problem with the English lyrics in the film or on CD.

first... I don't consider the end of movie/credits songs to be part of the soundtrack proper. They're not meant to be paired with a scene from the movie and they are meant to be enjoyable on their own in a more 'pop' format. English lyrics are almost a necessity for any attempt to use the song to sell the movie (which is why they make music videos of them... if you look back at the online content available for the LOTR soundtrack CDs, FOTR's content was focused a lot on Enya. For TTT and ROTK, the content focused more on the soundtrack and movie itself.)

So, on to the movie. I would phrase the usage of English lyrics a little differently as -- not in songs that are sung by characters on screen (which is a form of diegetic... another form would be characters 'off screen')-- but as ones sung primarily by Hobbits. The obvious exception was Gandalf singing the Walking Song which was a Hobbit Song.

The two less obvious - one because it was not diegetic and the other because it didn't appear until ROTK EE - are songs associated with Arwen. Besides the Houses of Healing, the singing heard at the banks of the Bruinen are in English.

This has been a topic before and many of us weighed in with our opinions. For my part, Arwen's Song is probably my least favorite song/singing associated with the movie. Perhaps even my least favorite piece of music - singing or no. I wanted to think that Shore did not compose the tune or may not have even been involved in the recording of it. (Not only do I not like the melody for the soloist or choir intro but the whole production value of the piece sounds off with the rest of the soundtrack) But a search recently brought up a quote in the Music From the Movies LOTR issue where Shore says he did compose the tune.

Also, I have no problem with the lyrics being in English. It's nice occasionally to be able to understand what's being sung.

I will agree that the choral introduction and the instrumental accompaniment in the body of the song are very dissimilar to most of the rest of Shore's work on the score. However, that isn't automatically a bad thing. Moreover, the sentiments conveyed by the lyrics ("the world has changed forever," "the trees have changed from green to gold"), coupled with the autumnal feel of the instrumental bridge, really encapsulate, for me anyway, a great deal of the emotional content of LOTR the book that might otherwise have gone missing in the movies.

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If it had been used where it was supposedly meant to be, during the exodus from Rivendell in TTT, it would have been less out of place lyrically.

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Originally posted by gkgyver:
To me, Arwen's Song has a pop- quality that is too much for LotR. It doesn't really fit either, the scene or the rest of the score.

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Re: Arwen's Song. I like the tune (I'm glad that Doug included the notes in the liner notes), but I don't like Tyler's performance, I would have preferred someone else...

Speaking of Arwen's Song: I just noticed a small error in the AS. It says 'The Grace of the Valar' is first heard on disc 3 track 13. In fact, it's first heard on track 11, right before Liv's Song. But I guess that's quite unimportant.

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Originally posted by Sabsi:
Did you know that 'You Can Leave Your Hat On' was originally written by Newman? I didn't...

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I did! Though to be honest, I only read about it a couple of weeks ago.

All Best

The Grace of Undomiel: The entire track, especially the dark setting of the Rivendell theme.

The Stairs of Cirith Ungol: The swirling strings and woodwinds toward the end of the track...very creepy.

Merry's Simple Courage: A very lovely little piece of music. Anything associated with Éowyn is always good.

The Paths of the Dead: This all sounded very new to me. I love the male choirs and the gongs, and the long, low brass chord at the end is very powerful.

Shelob's Lair: The weaving in of the Lothlorien theme, and how Shore captures what Jackson found so frightening about spiders (they scurry...then STOP...scurry...STOP)

Shieldmaiden of Rohan: The Nazgul choir is very effective here.

Passing of Théoden: Another lovely choral piece.

Houses of Healing: I actually love Arwen's song, the choral introduction and the instrumental bridge.

For Frodo: The choir setting of the Fellowship theme gives me chills, but the entire track is powerful. The abrupt transition from a large choir to a single voice is startling, and the track really sets the path for the climax.

The Crack of Doom: I have always been in love with the sorrowful setting of the Evil Times theme at the end of this track. It's heartbreaking. Am I wrong in hearing a little of Nature's Reclamation here as well?

The Fellowship Reunited: The soft bit at the end under Frodo's "threads of an old life" speech.

Also Elanor and Bilbo's Song.

And so the rambling ends.

Does anyone here NOT like Lennox's performance of "Into the West"? I like the composition and she's fine on the verses, but the chorus (Grey Havens theme) is too harsh and loud in my opinion.

I'm gonna began my "complete" thematic analysis soon but I won't finish it until the book is out because some info would be missing. Maybe even Earl will let me put it on his wonderful site if he likes.

It looks like Universal chose to use those stupid rubber hubs in the Battlestar Galactica HD DVD box set. People are calling it the worst packaging ever for disc based media. Whoever invented these rubber hubs should be locked away forever.

You can see me in the picture after the picture that shows Ralo (on the right) *yay*

There are regular discussions on movie that are on hiatus for December. I tried an ongoing movie discussion but, although those participating had some really great stuff to say, the number of people participating was low and it was a bit more work for me than I could sustain.

What I do now is piggyback on other discussions. If someone is discussing a particular moment in the movie, I might provide info on the music for that moment. Discussions at TORn always focus on the emotional impact of the music. No one besides me is keeping track of the themes and where they occur. An, although some have music background, the discussion still stays focused on how the music is working within that scene or throughout the movie. There's been some real gems in those happenstance discussions.

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As I read the annotated score to "A Coronal Of Silver", in which Doug describes that the Fourth Age of Gondor theme resembles the Minas Tirith theme, I realise that the Minas Tirith theme and the Grey Havens theme (which also strongly resembles the Fourth Age theme) could represent the two opposite fates that the Fourth Age is bringing.

The Minas Tirith theme on one hand, (better know maybe as "Anduril") with its majestic tone, could describe what Gondor once was and what it will become again.
The Grey Havens theme on the other hand could describe the sacrifices people have to make so that a new Golden Age can become a reality.

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Remind me again why I care about these things?

I can finally read these boards again safely for the first time in months! Sheesh.

My first listen was quite overwhelming. Unlike the other two films, I've only seen ROTK a few times, and so the specifics of scenes are very sketchy in my head. As a result, the first 3 hours or so I only knew what was going on a handful of times, making for a somewhat strange experience. People always call TTT the most schizophrenic of the films/scores, as it cuts between multiple stories, but I found ROTK far more disjointed and complicated than TTT the first time I listened to both. Wonder if that's just me. I also found some ROTK transitions very jarring and abrupt, and to my ears TTT flows almost seamlessly from beginning to end.

My first experience was that, being overwhelmed, I was quite tuned in to the oppressiveness of the orchestration, which was very intense for me. Particularly, I found myself empathizing with Denethor, almost listening to the score through his ears, as I felt the weight of the Mordorian themes so oppressively weighing down and crushing any hope, as Denethor would have experienced more than any other being the leader of the land bordering on Mordor. On first listen, this music was quite foreign for me, having only heard the new themes a handful of times, years ago, watching the movie. I found far less relation to old themes than I was expecting, and I've written personal thematic analyses of both FOTR and TTT, so I'm very familiar with the themes used up till the end of TTT.

Once The Mouth of Sauron began, I was in ecstasy, and basically non-stop tears for the remainder. It was also the first time I've ever heard Sissel's piece and Bilbo's Song, as I was saving my ears for the complete recordings. Arwen's song does seem out-of-line with the rest of Shore's style to my ears, but I didn't find it 'too pop' as some have said, just different (but Liv's voice isn't trained enough to provide enough power to the notes, I think).

Bilbo's Song blew me away. I was instantly hit with the image of Bilbo composing it on the ship, in the middle of a vast sea, with the elves behind him on the deck of the ship, surrounded by immortality and reflective of his past life in Middle-earth. It was a very strong vision. I was almost half-not wanting to hear it, as I love the Wagnerian end to the end credits, but luckily for me I found Bilbo's Song a beautiful end and am very happy with how the album ends emotionally.

I look forward to adapting to this score and (to my ears) its very new and unique sound, and am sad that one day there will be no more LOTR music to adapt to, that it will all be familiar and analyzed. Time to immerse myself in the experience one last time over the coming months (save the rarities!).

*This post is dedicated to all the unlucky fans who pre-ordered but haven't got the album yet, hang in there, it's worth it (but you already knew that)*