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Last Modified : 9-9-2008
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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (With Bonus DVD)
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JazzDigger Home > F - Jazz Artists > King Fleming > Item 7
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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (With Bonus DVD)
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by Howard Shore, James Galway, John Parricelli, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Renée Fleming
Price:$7.50
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Listener Reviews & Comments
This deluxe edition of the soundtrack to "The Return of the King" has the exact same music as the regular edition, but comes in a beautiful leather package. Casual listeners should save money and buy the regular edition, but Tolkien fans will want this durable, bookshelf beauty instead. (Being a complete Tolkien nut, I bought both.) The third of Howard Shore's soundtrack albums to the "Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy is, like the film itself, the best of the best. The albums for both "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers" were superb, stunning orchestral storyscapes that perfectly caught Tolkien's Middle-Earth and were wonderful individual listening experiences on their own, away from the films. The perfect music to read Tolkien by. But this is the big one. This is the masterpiece. This is some of best film music of the last decade. Shore surpasses himself in every way on this score. The new major theme for the score is the Gondor Theme, heard in fullest expression in the inspiring track "The White Tree" (actually, this is the music for the lighting of the beacons of Gondor) and also in "Minas Tirith" and the lonely, sad track "The Steward of Gondor," where Billy Boyd provides a haunting song to accompany a massacre. (Boyd's voice is a real surprise -- he sounds professional). The other themes from the early films return, with Shore adapting them and changing them in surprising ways. You'll thrill to hearing the Rohirrim theme in "The Ride of the Rohirrim" as well as the way the theme introduces the real stand-out track of the album, "The Fields of Pelennor," a masterpiece suite describing various aspects of the battle around Minas Tirith. This track achieves almost a sublime level of action and power (screaming chorus, driving brass, and Shore's characteristic delayed resolution to build suspense) and is the musical highlight of the three albums. (I stood up cheered at the end the first time I heard it, even though I was alone.) "Shelob's Lair" is also an amazing track, filled with jabbing, crazy strings and a sense of rising panic. You can hear the giant spider moving around in the music and it will make you as afraid as Frodo himself was. Shore pounds the story into an orchestral rage for "The End of All Things," which is the story's climax and an overwhelming track of rapidly shifting emotions and explosions of choral fury. It will quite wring you out the same way the movie does at this point. For quieter moments, there are beautiful and inspiring tracks like "Twilight and Shadow" (dealing with Arwen) and the lengthy ten-minute track "The Return of the King," which sums up all the major themes and at last brings us full circle to the sprightly Hobbiton theme first heard back in "The Fellowship of the Ring." Shore ends it all with grace and quiet beauty in the subtle and sad track "The Grey Havens," which uses a theme that had grown throughout the score. This theme then becomes the soft and soulful Annie Lennox song, "Into the West," the perfect conclusion to the album. I've come across few soundtrack albums as well put together as this. Anyone who loves Tolkien, film music, or great orchestral music, MUST buy this album. My only complaint? There's so much more music in the film than they could fit on a single CD. A big deluxe double CD with more of the music would be appreciated in the near future.
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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (With Bonus DVD)
by Howard Shore, James Galway, John Parricelli, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Renée Fleming
Price:$7.50
|
|
|
