The Special Edition of
the ROTK Soundtrack came with a DVD. The DVD contained:
-
Lord of the Rings
Trilogy Supertrailer
-
Use Well The Days: A
Behind the Scenes Portrait
-
Photo Gallery:
Howard Shore and Orchestral Sessions
-
Poems, Text and
Lyrics from The Return of the King
-
Bonus Track: "Use
Well The Days", performed by Annie Lennox
TRANSCRIBED ON THIS
PAGE:
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Some Comments from
Use Well The Days: A Behind the Scenes Portrait
When you see this:
HS
COMMENT
elsewhere
on the site,
it means that Howard Shore has made a comment pertinent
to something mentioned there.
Click on the link to find out what.
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Howard Shore:
Production is like a... it's like you're laying the track and
like this train is barreling down the track and you're
constantly just laying the track in front of it so it doesn't
derail. And if the train has to pause its just like (HS
shudders) vibrating and steam is pouring out of it waiting for
you, to know, lay a little more track so it can go barreling
down it.
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Annie
Lennox:
(after listening to last few notes of "Into the West")
It's
beautiful. (She lets out a large sigh of someone who's been
holding her breath and pauses for a moment.) It's got that
largesse and it's got the stillness at the same time. And you
haven't got anything pompous. It's just great. You must be
pleased with that.
HS:
Well I am...
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Howard Shore:
I had
the idea to use a pan flute for this charac..., you know, for
Faramir. It's sort of a Middle-earth sound because it's so
basic. The
pan flute is one of the oldest instruments in the
world.
(Music playing: pan flute from "The Steward of Gondor" )
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Renée Fleming:
(shot of Renée singing - The End of All Things 1:08)
HS: How does it feel to sing?
RF: Beautiful. It's sits very nicely in the voice. One of your
gifts is that you play against expectation. Because in these
cataclysmic moments you have something very pure and very quiet
which is so beautiful.
HS:
We do that, yes. Yes, Peter is so keen in knowing how to do
that.
RF:
Well that's what the best composers do, I think.
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Howard Shore:
(talking in a teleconference to Renée Fleming)
And
you hear Ben Del Maestro singing. He's a boy soprano. You just
hear his singing over... armies of a thousand, but you just hear
the one voice.
(Music playing: music leading into BDM solo and then BDM: "Minas
Tirith" 2:02)
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Howard Shore:
You
got about 8 measures of raging choir. (To camera) Here, look. (points to score) "The End of All Things". That's got to be
near the end of the movie, right With a title like that,
"The End of All Things"? It's got to be close.
(HS sings a few bars and says to the camera...)
See, then you cut to
the choir.
(Cut to the choir singing the
Fellowship Theme.)
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Use Well The Days
Composer
Commentary
After the
recording of the extended cut of 'The Two Towers' in March I spent
most of April in New Zealand with Peter, Fran, and Philippa looking
at and dreaming about 'The Return of the King'. On a beautiful
clear day in Wellington, Fran and I thought about artists for the
recording in August. Annie Lennox was at the very top of our list. I wrote Annie when I returned to Tuxedo, New York and while
awaiting a reply wrote the melody to 'Use Well the Days'. I met
with Annie in New York City in June and played her this piece on our
very first meeting. A short time later in July Annie did a
recording of the song at Abbey Road Studios in London. The song
'Into the West' was written a few months later with Fran and Annie
and played beautifully to the end of the film and the personal,
intimate feeling of Frodo and The Grey Havens. I always felt that
'Use Well the Days' was part of the journey to 'Into the West', a
place that we had to go to finally arrive at the Grey Havens and the
end of the film. Annie's reading of the song is particularly
beautiful and movie and I also love that it encompasses so many
beautiful lines from the book.
Howard Shore
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