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A review by JAMES SOUTHALL

One of the biggest challenges facing Howard Shore for The Lord of the Rings trilogy - apart from the obvious one, the sheer volume of music required for each film - was that it is not a film then a sequel then another sequel, it's really one long story.  None of this Star Wars-style "let's pretend it was all one long story all along" business, this one really was, putting him in the unique position of needing to plan, effectively, three films in one go.  One thing he has done very well is write three scores which are different enough from each other than they make for albums that can stand on their own without seeming just one third of a whole, but at the same time they are clearly all painted on the same tapestry and draw from the same basic well.  And so, The Return of the King is here; more of the same, but different even so!

It is worth saying right at the start that this is easily - very easily - the most satisfying album of the three.  The Fellowship of the Ring was good - but something seemed to be missing, and even with a comparatively small proportion of the score as a whole being presented on the disc, the music was far too repetitive; The Two Towers was not repetitive, but it was incredibly dense, overbearingly so, and lacked the first score's charm; The Return of the King seems to take the best elements of the first two scores and add a whole lot more, even better elements.

The first obvious difference is in the very first cue, "A Storm is Coming" which (despite its title) is a considerably lighter and more appealing start to the album than the previous two featured.  The most notable new theme is for Gondor and is heard several times (though never enough to drive you to distraction!) - perhaps most impressively in "The Steward of Gondor".  Another great new theme is heard in "Twilight and Shadow", a moving, emotional and powerful piece which seems all the better for its relative simplicity.  The orchestration here is far slighter than in the previous two films, which makes the music considerably easier and most pleasant to listen to, and also makes that all-important emotional connection all the easier to find.  (The cue is also notable in that it introduces Renee Fleming.  Each of the scores have featured notable vocalists, but to attract an artist of Fleming's calibre is a real coup.  Another big-name cameo comes from Sir James Galway, who lends flute and whistle performances to a few tracks.)  Don't assume, however, that slighter orchestration means everything is cute and melodic; far from it, indeed "Shelob's Lair" is particularly dissonant, but because the orchestration isn't heavy-handed, the clarity and vibrancy of the performance is allowed to shine through and make a real impression.  It's a great, portentous, powerful piece.

Early indications were that most of the film's action music had been eschewed from the album because it hadn't been recorded in time for inclusion, but the truth is that there is plenty of exciting music here.  "The Ride of the Rohirrim" will, I'm sure, go on to become one of the most popular pieces out of all of Shore's work on the trilogy; and "The Fields of the Pelennor" is as good a piece of action music as you'll hear in a new score this year.  I mentioned emotion in the previous paragraph, something the first two scores in the trilogy just didn't seem to have; Shore has made up for it here with a number of wonderful pieces, none better than "Anduril", whose brass theme is stunning.  Another thing laid on in spades that wasn't nearly so prominent in the previous scores as may have been expected is spectacle; just listen to "The Black Gate Opens", which virtually screams out that something very important is happening, with yet another new theme, a beautiful piece for chorus and orchestra given its most touching performance by Galway's flute, and also introduces (guess what?!) another new theme, a horn piece that goes on to form the basis for the end credit song.

The strongest cue of all is probably the titual "The Return of the King", which runs for ten minutes and is a big, sweeping finale piece that, delightfully, reprises the Hobbit music from The Fellowship of the Ring.  There's still time for another highlight after that though, with "Into the West", sung by Annie Lennox.  Each of the three films has featured an excellent song over the end title, reprising that particular golden age tradition, though this time - great though the song is - I do wonder whether a full-scale summary of the trilogy's major themes might have been even better.

I found the first two scores in the trilogy to be left slightly wanting, so it is refreshing to report that The Return of the King delivers on every count.  Shore wraps things up in a predictably melancholic and reflective, rather than celebratory, manner, and the album is a triumph from start to finish.  It's certainly one of the strongest - if not the strongest - scores of the year.  Things aren't quite over yet for Shore however, with him taking his six-movement (two from each film) "symphony" around the world, writing new music for the expanded DVD and planning a nine-CD box set of all the music from the trilogy - I do wonder about the wisdom of that (given that The Fellowship of the Ring is already so repetitive as to render repeated listening somewhat unlikely, even on one CD! - and that even Gandalf himself might struggle to stump up the cash for a 9-CD set!)  But on this evidence, Middle Earth has never sounded so good.

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Tracks

1. A Storm is Coming (2:52)
2. Hope and Memory (1:45)
3. Minas Tirith (3:37)
4. The White Tree (3:25)
5. The Steward of Gondor (3:53)
6. Minas Morgul (1:58)
7. The Ride of the Rohirrim (2:08)
8. Twilight and Shadow (3:30)
9. Cirith Ungol (1:44)
10. Anduril (2:35)
11. Shelob's Lair (4:07)
12. Ash and Smoke (3:25)
13. The Fields of the Pelennor (3:26)
14. Hope Fails (2:20)
15. The Black Gate Opens (4:01)
16. The End of All Things (5:12)
17. The Return of the King (10:14)
18. The Grey Havens (5:59)
19. Into the West (5:47)