Track-by-Track: Soundtrack Discussion and Analysis

[Lathriel]

I don't really like the beginning of this track. However, as soon as Renee Fleming joins the mix of choral lines throughout the track I like it better. She just has such a beautiful voice!! It is so dramatic and this track certainly gives a climax feeling.
The choir sounds very urgent and because they are mainly chanting at the beginning of the track I get this feeling of pressure. It has now come to the final scene and there is a huge pressure on Frodo since he has to throw in the ring but he can't do it and I think that the chanting certainly adds to that pressure the scene already has.
When Renee Fleming interupts the chant I see it as the ring seducing Frodo one last time. Then the choir continues and again adds pressure.
When Renee sings again it gives me chills and the melody tells us it is over,it is done.

[Elladan and Elrohir]

Some don't like it, but I think it's brilliant in this track when it goes into the Renee Fleming solo as Gollum holds up the Ring. It's like all of a sudden, everything stops as Gollum has his moment.

This is a great track. Don't have anything to add about it musically, but it has that "this is it, the real true climax" epic feel. And of course, the second Fleming solo, done while the Eagles carry Frodo and Sam from Mt. Doom, also fits brilliantly.

This is possibly the best choral track in the entire LOTR soundtracks (although Foundations of Stone would have to fit in there somewhere too).

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Lathriel

I don't really like the beginning of this track.

I, for one, just love it. The combination of the choir singing triplets while the brass are playing eight and sixteenth notes sounds magnificent, like something big is going to happen. We sure are dealing with the climax of the trilogy here.

"Here at the end; The end of all things." "I cannot reach you I cannot let you leave me."
On screen, we can see and hear the actors, but their dialogue can be heard also through the lyrics of this track. . . Ooh, isn't this almost like in an opera?
I think it's a very nice touch to use one of Tolkien's own compositions here (The Eagles) when all the effort, different characters and their journeys are tied together. However, my favourite poem in this track is "The Mountain of Fire".

Here at the end;
The end of all things.
The air is aflame,
All the world is on fire!

Wow.

It may be just me, but I think that there's something similar in the little brass solos in this track, The End of All Things, at 1:47ish, and back where it all started, in The Prophecy, somewhere around one minute. The latter is much softer, well, a gentle image, a prophecy, of what it will become in the End. I don't know if this connection (if there is one, that is) is intentional, but to me it's just another jewel that makes the score so wonderful.



There were Howard Shore's comments about this track, too, in the Music from the Movies magazine and I'd like to quote here extracts from the interview.

"When Gollum gets The Ring, this is Renée Fleming's second aria; your dynamic approach to this seems to be the key to this part of the film."

"You hear the full two hundred piece choir and orchestra and then it just stops and you hear Renée accapella. Two hundred pieces to only one voice, to highlight the moment.

The biggest orchestration in the film is really right in that section of Mount Doom where Frodo decides not to destroy The Ring. He's standing on the edge of the Crack of Doom and Sam is saying, "Throw it in, destroy it, destroy it!" and Frodo in anguish decides that he's not going to destroy it and he tears it from its chain around his neck. Then Gollum finally leaps on Frodo and gets The Ring. I created musical contrast to highlight the fact that Gollum now has The Ring. It's a specific shot; it's an overhead shot of Gollum holding The Ring up over his head. It's a joyous moment.

Renée's solo lasts four or five bars, and then the orchestra enters and the score starts to build back up again. The choir actually comes back when Frodo regains his strength after losing The Ring. As Frodo approaches Gollum the chorus comes back in and there's this massive sound, it's the climax of the movie, that's when Frodo struggles with Gollum and pushes him over the ledge into the lava with The Ring. This scene was incredibly important for me. This is a very iconic scene in the movie and the book, so you had to be prepared to write that. It took three years to write that piece."

Edit: Page 7!

[Folwren]

Oh my goodness! Those transations and explenations you gave Enca were beautifully done!

When I first heard the track, I didn't like it much, but when I was alone and sewing, I would actually listen to it, and then the whole struggle, and the beauty, both attacked me at once, and it almost makes me cry every time I hear it. And now. . .now with what you've said. . .well, music always has gotten to me in a strange way.

Most people, I notice, who hear that song and don't actually listen to it, and who also don't know the story/movie, don't tend to like it so much. But when you sit down, and think about what the music is saying (in the words and instruments), then it can get really powerful.

-- Folwren

[Lathriel]

I do like this track when I am in the mood. However, what I often find is that I can't listen to LOTR as just background music. When the music is on (from FOTR,TTT,ROTK) it demands me attention and if I miss parts of the tracks I feel bad for ignoring it.

[Encaitare]

The opening of this track is soft and gentle (like the peace after the battle), in sharp contrast to the horrors our heroes have just experienced. Strings are soon joined by the flute, playing music reminiscient of the Shire's. By 1:20, brass has joined in as well to perform the Fellowship theme -- it is, after all, the first time the Fellowship (except dead Boromir) has been together since the Breaking back in FotR. Upon Sam's entrance at about 1:47, the flute returns to play the Shire theme.

At 2:16, we are out atop Minas Tirith at the coronation ceremony; the music is gentle but majestic, and the horn plays the Gondor theme. At 3:46, we have Viggo's lovely solo:

Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien
Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta

Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come.
In this place I will abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world

The Fellowship theme returns briefly before Renee Fleming's solo, signaling the appearance of Arwen:

Tinúviel elvanui
Elleth alfirin edhelhael
O hon ring finnil fuinui
A renc gelebrin thiliol...

Tinúviel [the] elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast [her] night-dark hair,
And arms [like] silver glimmering...

The strings move this into another brief solo by Sir Galway; then the Shire theme is heard as the people of Minas Tirith bow down to our hobbity heroes.

By 6:42 we are panning out, and look, the city turned into a map! The music in this bit does not seem to follow any certain theme, but at 7:22, the Shire theme is repeated on flute yet another time. The music is similar to that at the beginning of the trilogy, with the soft beats underneath the melody. At 8:22, a fiddle plays a variation of the theme, too. Even though the same melody is repeated, it is much sadder and darker. This changes at 9:23, when Sam gets his little spurt of courage, and marries Rosie. The music takes a brief happy turn, quite like the original Shire music, but then moves back to a more sorrowful sound.

Only two more tracks left!

[Kitanna]

I love this track, mainly because it brings in most of the themes from other tracks, all except the evil themes and Rohan's theme I think.

The part played during Aragorn's coronation is probably my favorite of the whole piece. The French Horn plays the Gondor theme and the strings play counter to it. And it sets the stage for Viggo's singing.

The theme first heard in FOTR when Arwen saves Frodo returns as she comes onto the screen. Such pretty vocals.

In the end we are returned to the Shire and the fiddle plays the heroes are coming home. There's even a bit of the Fellowship theme mixed in just before the faster theme of the Shire begins.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Here we have over 10 minutes of lovely motifs bound together. At this point when watching RotK, I usually get a little distracted because I know that the film will end soon. We've been following a 11-hour-long story that began already in year 2001 (What! It's been over four years since FotR came into theatres), and it's quite sad, really, that this is the beginning of the last 20 minutes, or so. It's also the beginning of the many "endings" of RotK - you know, the film could have ended in Minas Tirith turning into a map, the Hobbits returning to the Shire, the last ship to Valinor setting off... Maybe it's a subtle way to remind the viewers that it's soon time to return to RL from Middle-earth. Heh, kind of when your alarm clock goes off in the morning and you don't want to wake up, you hit "snooze" and get to continue sleeping yet for a while before you really have to get up. This can be heard in the score, too. Although the rest of the film is full of happy moments like the reunion of the Fellowship, the coronation and Sam and Rosie's wedding, we don't see or hear that kind of a spirited joy that we saw at Bilbo's birthday party, for example, but this is much more serene happines that is mixed with melancholy.

We hear Renée Fleming's last solo of Arwen, and as Kitanna said, this is the same theme we heard when we first saw Arwen at Troll Shaw. The lyrics are exactly the same and Arwen's part in this story ends to the same words that it began with. We will not see her again.

One of the most interesting things on this track is that it's not the Tin Whistle anymore that plays the theme when the Hobbits return to the Shire, but the flute. The Hobbits have changed quite a bit and using another instrument here is a nice way to show that.


Here's what Howard Shore tells about Viggo Mortensen's solo: "He sang it when they filmed it and I created a piece to accompany it. Viggo created the melody. This is when Aragorn sings acapella for a few bars and then chorus enters to join him in accompaniment."

So, like Billy Boyd, Viggo got to compose his own solo, too. Great job, I say. The solo is very nice, but he sings it so softly that it's hard to tell whether he's singing it for the people who are gathered to his coronation or if he's singing it to himself.