The New Arrival: Shore's Symphony

So, on Saturday came a new cd: THE LORD OF THE RINGS SYMPHONY, by Howard Shore, performed by the '21st Century Symphony Orchestra & Chorus', who are apparently based in Lucerne (Switzerland), and directed by Ludwig Wicki. This is not to be confused with THE LORD OF THE RINGS: SYMPHONY No. 1, by Johan de Meij, which has been around for more than two decades now. Instead, it's Shore's scores for the LotR films adapted into symphony form, more or less. I say 'more or less', because it's rather unusual for a symphony to have six movements (four is traditional). Here, of course, the six parts correspond to the six books that make up Tolkien's LotR, rather than (as I expected) a three-part structure deriving from the three Peter Jackson films.

So how is the music? Well, if you disliked Shore's scores (as a small but vocal minority does) you won't like this either, since it derives from the film music. Surprisingly enough, I found it less impressive than the original individual soundtracks from which it derives. Played too softly, it vanishes into the background; played loudly, I found I had some trouble identifying where in the story we were at different points (which had not been the case with the three soundtracks). I'd thought this would be tighter and have greater impact than the longer scores, but I think the opposite turns out to be the case. This shorter version seems to me to have less focus, oddly enough.

Such at any rate is my first impression. It's entirely possible Shore's symphony will grow on my over time. But for now I think I'll be more likely to re-listen to the cds I have (FR, TT, RK, the stage musical) and that this might drift towards the back of the shelf. We'll see. At least it has more impact than the de Meij, which I've never been able to listen to all the way through without my attention wandering -- though I see that there's a new recording of this out, from the London Symphony Orchestra. If anyone has heard this, I'd be interested in how it compares to the earlier recordings: does it have more character?

--John R.

The Epic of the Decade?

So, Friday I picked up the new issue of TOTAL FILM magazine (not something I usually read), which proclaimed on its cover their selection of Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy as The Epic of the Decade. This designation turns out to be less distinctive than it might be, since the magazine turns out to have ten nested covers, each inside the other: Best Epic, Best Blockbuster, Best Sci-Fi, and the like. Still, LotR did get priority of place, both as the first cover and first write-up for the lead story (pages 62-65) -- which focuses mostly on Jackson who, seeing the films again for the first time since their release (in order to get his mind working on THE HOBBIT project), muses on ways his films had influenced the way other films had been made, right down to specific shots. Better still, there's a small box about the upcoming HOBBIT movie, which is due out the end of next year: they've now finalized the look of Smaug, the wargs, spiders ("visually striking, in a different way to Shelob; massive but very nimble") &c. Apparently filming starts late this spring -- not so far away at all now, the day before Groundhog's.

Retrospectives are always interesting, and when the tenth anniversary of the first film rolls round I'll be curious to see what the consensus opinion will be about how well they hold up. There may be remakes someday (given the way Hollywood works, or doesn't work), decades down the road, but I suspect these will remain the film adaptations people think of when they hear the phrase "Tolkien movies".

--John R.

current reading: THE RABBI'S CAT by Joann Sfar.