The Music of the Hobbit (Now with possible Spoilers)

[Passdagas the Brown]

Fair enough. Though just as I find some value in PJ's films, I imagine you found parts of it compelling. Curious to hear about any such moments, if there were any...

[Elentári]

90-sec samples of the SE OST available on this German HOBBIT FB page

[Beutlin]

Personally I still think those guys should have written at least one closing song for "The Hobbit":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJkLH4uZ ... iQ18Bgt0dA

(contains strong language)

[Dave_LF]

The soundtrack digital release date is today, and I'm listening to it now. The DoS score was a bit of a mini-revolution due to the number of new themes it introduced and, to some extent, the old ones it left behind. B5A is clearly its child--no return to the status quo here (though we do appropriately get some echoes of AUJ (and even FotR) toward the end). PtB, you'll be pleased to know that the Smaug theme manages to latch onto Thorin and maintains a strong presence despite the early demise of its primary avatar. And that Shore continues to do interesting things with it (windchimes and castanets, anyone?). See "Beyond Sorrow and Grief" and especially the palpable, fevered insanity of "Mithril". I'll probably have more to say after I've had more time to listen and digest.

(edit) Some additional thoughts as they occur to me:
-"Fire and Water" is surprisingly placid on balance. After one listen, I'm not even quite sure where Smaug dies (assuming it's in this track at all).
-"Bred for War:" Yes, you can describe bat wings and screeches musically
-"Ravenhill" reflects "An Ancient Enemy" from AUJ (Azanulbizar). I think Fili's death is going to rhyme with Thror's.
-As expected, "sad Tauriel" from "Beyond the Forest" is back in "Courage and Wisdom." I like Beyond's version better, though.

[Passdagas the Brown]

Love the Smaug theme, and will be listening to this tonight. Thanks for the preview, Dave!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Reddit Q&A with Howard Shore:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2 ... alk_about/

[Dave_LF]

That was enjoyable to read (well; as enjoyable as reading reddit can be, anyway). An interesting and talented professional.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Indeed. I was a little daunted by it at first, until I figured out that it was fairly easy to find his answers mixed in the mess.

[kzer_za]

Well, I love Children of Men, Tree of Life, and Jackson's LotR trilogy. So I guess I'm a people pleaser!

[TheTennisBallKid]

Here's an easier to read summary of that Q&A.

With a picture of the late Marvin Hamlisch at the top.

Edit: Here's an interview with Shore.

[Dave_LF]

There hasn't been much point to doing detective work on the score this year since (a) there are no new themes to tease out except "Ironfoot," which was identified by name in a track title, and (b) blow-by-blow details of the film were available before the soundtrack was. But the process is too much fun to skip entirely. So I'm going to guess that Fili dies at about 0:45 during "Ravenhill" and that Kili follows him at 4:18. Reasoning:

Hidden text.

For Fili, the moment closely mirrors Thror's death at Azanulbizar. Azog used Thror's death to taunt Thrain and Thorin, and we're told that he kills Fili in B5A for the same reason. It is also possible that he is merely captured at 0:45 and that the actual killing happens at 1:08.

For Kili, we're told that he dies protecting Tauriel. Her theme is prominent starting at 2:17 (Legolas is there too, at least for a moment), but it runs into trouble at 2:38 and especially 2:57. Then it relaxes into what eventually reveals itself as the motif for the Kili/Tauriel "relationship" at 3:10 but at 4:03, that too runs into trouble. Finally, at the moment I've picked (4:18), we get a sudden, sharp injection of Mordor. After that, the track transitions into "sad Tauriel" from Beyond the Forest (possibly there is a scene seam in between).

It at least sounds like they get to have a happy moment together right before the end.

[Elentári]

Middle-earth News has an exclusive interview with Doug Adams Part 1 of 2...

He certainly talks more openly about that "headscratcher" moment in the AUJ score:

...And the Ringwraith music there at the end has been cause for countless discussions over the past couple years, and angry accusations and everything else you can imagine. I think the idea there was just to add a bit of darkness to the scene. People are always wondering what that theme has to do with dwarves, “It’s a Mordor theme.” But they always kind of forget who the other character is in that scene, Azog is aligned with the Necromancer who, spoiler alert, we learn a bit about what his story is, so there’s that connection there. Is it a direct line saying, “This theme goes to him because he’s related”? No. It’s little bit more tenuous than it usually is. But that was the idea there. I can’t speak for anyone else but to me the true versions of those moments are what we hear on the album, the original scoring that went with those. To me that’s the one that makes the most sense musically. Some people love that moment, some people got very confused by it. I know that it was a strong thematic connection that became the head-scratcher for people. I certainly understand the confusion.

And mentions that palantír scene that we will probably never get to see!

You know it’s funny, there’s always a few things that change between the October cut and the final release. Like with DOS, when I got to the theater I realized that I’d seen most of the extended edition scenes. And I kept looking around thinking “Where’s Thrain, what happened to him? Thrain’s gone!” I was very confused by that, haha. There were actually some scenes in the cut I saw that didn’t make it into either version. There was a scene originally in DOS that involved a palantír that was not used in the film. When I saw it I thought, “Oh okay, they’re going to put that into the story.” I’m glad I didn’t put that into the liner notes because that would have confused a lot of people. There are always some cool surprises!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

To my surprise, I found that I quite liked this (I know the lyrics come from LOTR, but all the images are from the Hobbit film).

[Elentári]

Yes, she has a beautiful voice, , which I very much enjoyed but I found the fact that the words had nothing to do with the visuals meant the whole package ended up not doing anything for me, really...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I wouldn't say they had "nothing to do" with the visuals, just that they were loosely related.

[Elentári]

I guess...

Coincidentally, this happens to be the latest offering from Kimberly80: Kheled-zâram "And saw a crown of stars appear"

[Pearly Di]

V-man, I liked that Durielle song very much.

Shore's score for BoFA is my favourite of his Hobbit scores, which so far have underwhelmed me.

Of course I love his LotR score like the fire of a million suns.

It occurs to me though that his rather more understated musical score for BoFA - there was no particular theme that leapt out at me - suits the material more. LotR is definitely the elder sibling here.

I like Billy Boyd's final song. So much better than that Ed Sheeran thing!

[Passdagas the Brown]

I guess...

Coincidentally, this happens to be the latest offering from Kimberly80: Kheled-zâram "And saw a crown of stars appear"

I like that one. Gimli looking into Kheled-zâram is, for one reason or another, one of my favorite little bits from LOTR. It's small moments like that which if adapted for the films, could have elevated them beyond action-adventure, IMO.

[Elentári]

Tracksounds podcast with Doug Adams...

http://tracksounds.com/specialfeatures/ ... /index.htm

Episode 78 - The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Author Doug Adams (The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films) joins Christopher Coleman and Marius Masalar to break down Howard Shore's score for the final Hobbit installment: The Battle of the Five Armies. Richard Buxton joins in for our first WHYBLT (What Have You Been Listening To) segment of 2015 and we also take a few twitter questions for Doug Adams about The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings scores.

Episode Highlights

00:30 — Introduction and "What Have You Been Listening To?"
22:39 — Battle of the Five Armies - movie discussion
33:25 — Battle of the Five Armies - movie discussion (spoilers)
45:08 — Battle of the Five Armies - music in context (spoliers)
50:27 — The Hobbit versus The Lord of the Rings
63:09 — Twitter question - "Will there be a Complete Recordings of The Hobbit?"
66:29 — "Unexpected Unresolution"
76:48 — Twitter questions: LOTR re-recordings? The Music of the Hobbit Films book?
84:02 — The Hobbit on vinyl - digital versus physical releases
94:03 — The legacy of the six films and the six scores

Music Selections

00:02 — Sons of Durin (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) by Howard Shore
12:46 — The Seeding (Civilization: Beyond Earth) by Jeff Knorr
16:37 — Bathfime (The Homesman) by Marco Beltrami
17:51 — Into The Starscape (The Last Starfighter) by Craig Safan
22:13 — Battle for the Mountain (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) by Howard Shore
44:39 — The Darkest Hour (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) by Howard Shore
49:08 — Sons of Durin (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) by Howard Shore
56:01 — The Ruins of Dale (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) by Howard Shore
60:21 — Feast of Starlight (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) by Howard Shore
102:30 — There and Back Again (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) by Howard Shore

Among other things, Doug confirms once and for all that the replacement of the album score for that Azog scene was "a director request"

[Passdagas the Brown]

How different was it on the album?