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These are comments made by Howard Shore
on Return of the King Extended Edition DVD audio commentary track. They
were transcribed by TheTennisBallKid.
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.
Chapter numbers in red indicate the chapter number found in the
DVD menus
Chapter numbers in blue indicate the chapter
number seen on your DVD player while playing Disc 2
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Jump to Comments:
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Disc: 1
Chapter: 8 |
On Screen: Gandalf and
Pippin
riding away from Edoras |
Music Playing:
White Rider Theme |
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There's certain emotional things, say,
between Merry and Pippin, and that parting at Edoras. I mean -- you
don't want to feel that different ways; you want to feel it one way.
You know, it wasn't like you wrote the music then analyzed it over
and over and over, you know, and tried to figure out "is that the
right...?" It was just your expression of that. And if was a true
expression -- which all of the music is in this movie -- there's
nothing false about. You know, it empowered you to create something
based on your own true feelings about it.
magpie: Although HS begins speaking
just as Gandalf and Pippin ride off from Edoras, he may actually be
referring to music heard just prior to that when Merry and Pippin
are parting. That scene uses Shire-ish music while the riding away
scene uses the White Rider Theme. See a
DA COMMENT
about the Shire-ish music.
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Disc: 1
Chapter: 11 |
On Screen: Gandalf and
Pippin
riding to Minas Tirith |
Music Playing:
Gondor Theme |
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The Gondor theme -- it's quite stately,
and it is played on the brass. I mean, the brass are really central
to Gondor. And it has a bit of a feeling of lost grandeur to it.
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Disc: 1
Chapter: 19 |
On Screen:
The Lighting of the Beacons |
Music Playing:
Gondor Theme |
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Lighting of the beacons is Gondor
signaling to Rohan for aid. So it's using the Gondor theme, sending
it out across the mountains. The music was used so much at the heart
of the story, the center of the story...and...by working with Peter
and Fran so carefully on it...and with Philippa on the text, and
using the Tolkien languages; the music was able to be created in a
way that was at the center of this piece. And um...I didn't know
that actually, starting out, that that's what it would be...it
wasn't like we had this discussion. It was just something that
evolved through the process of...really of just telling the story. I
think Peter and Fran wanted the music to be expressive in that way,
to be used in a way that was good storytelling. It's an older style;
it touches people. Storytelling is something that's been around for
a long time and everybody loves a good tale. And Peter is a great
storyteller, and by allowing me to express the story in music you
connect it to people in the way that music can. And I'm seeing that,
and it's fascinating to me actually -- to see the reaction to it,
and the knowledge of the music in the films. That people know all
the moments, and they know how the music relates to every frame of
the movie. I mean, they know everything about it.
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Disc: 1
Chapter: 26-27 |
On Screen:
Denethor sends Faramir
back to Osgiliath |
Music Playing:
Pan Flute /
Faramir's Theme |
Pan flute material Faramir is a character that I wanted to
give a certain sound to. He's another fairly tragic character. The
pan pipe is one of the oldest instruments in the world; I think I
was waiting for the right moment and the right spot to use it. It
wouldn't have seemed appropriate to me to use it in Fellowship of
the Ring...it might have seemed almost too obvious. And I didn't use
it in The Two Towers, and finally now in the first act of Return of
the King you hear a little bit of this sound; and it only connects
to Faramir. It's a scene where he's in conference with his father in
Minas Tirith, and his father is sending him on a mission he knows he
won't return [from]. It's a really great moment in the film. And
it's a turning point in Faramir because he knows he's going on a
suicide mission. As he leads his troops out of the city, you also
hear that pan pipe again, but now, it's more fully developed and you
hear the piece with choir and orchestra.
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Disc: 1
Chapter: 28 |
On Screen:
Faramir riding out of Minas Tirith* |
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*TheTennisBallKids notes: This comment is
heard after the end of the Frodo telling Sam to go home scene, but
seems to be in reference to it...
*Magpie notes: I almost think this
comment might have been tracked in from anywhere. It seems to be a
general statement that doesn't refer to anything specific about any
particular Frodo/Sam/Gollum scene. But if it's referring to the preceding
F/S/G
scene, that music would be heard in the OST track,
Cirith Ungol.
Fran is the great guide. Fran is the
writer of the relationships...and Frodo's relationship to
Gollum...Sam's relationship to Gollum...how Frodo relates to
Gandalf. I mean, Fran always seemed to be at the center of the
emotional heart of the film.
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Disc: 1
Chapter: 33 |
Onscreen:
The Three Hunters take
the Dimholt Road |
Music Playing:
low, droning male voices |
Paths of the Dead uses a Sindarin text; it
was created by Philippa Boyens and translated by David Salo. The
Tolkien book contains a lot of lyrics, and text, and poems. And one
of the ways I wanted to put some of that back into the film was to
use the human voice, the choirs. And I wanted the music, again, to
sound very old. So we'll use texts for certain scenes in the film,
and we'll have the choir singing. Paths of the Dead is an all male
group -- it's mostly basses -- and they're singing in Sindarin, a
poem of Philippa Boyens.
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Disc: 1
Chapter: 35 |
On Screen:
Paths of the Dead |
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I wrote watching the picture with Peter's
commentary. He would point out the whole shape of the scene. He
would also describe a lot of what was going on in the scene that I
wasn't able to see sometime, with CG or bluescreen. But he would
tell me, in detail, what I would be seeing with computer
graphics...you know, of wisps of smoke. But Peter would describe
precisely how the smoke would move in the scene, and where it would
trail off, and precisely where it would be gone. The smoke was
obviously the ghosts, the souls. So, just things like that, he would
describe in great detail in the spotting -- which were invaluable,
because you would write to them precisely. ^Return To Top
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 43
(7) |
On Screen:
Sam confronts Shelob |
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Shelob was like what we attempted in
Moria; once you entered Moria, you were in your own unique world.
All of the sing in Moria was in Dwarvish and it was sung all by men.
You never really heard this sound anywhere in Fellowship of the
Ring, except when you got to Moria. And then it progressed all
through Moria, it took you on this journey through the world of
Moria, and then took you outside.
And Shelob had its own sound, its own
characteristic, its own composition specific for this world, its own
orchestration, its own way of playing it. And that was the intent of
doing that.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 46
(10) |
On Screen:
Charge
of the Rohirrim |
Music Playing:
The Rohan theme |
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Barrie M. Osborne, Producer: Sound
design: I remember going through many versions of many different
horns. For almost every time you see a horn in any of the films of
the trilogy, we went through a lot of research and played Peter lots
of different variations.
Ethan Van der Ryn, Supervising Sound
Editor / Co-Designer: The horns that we ended up with were pitched
to work with the music that Howard scored.
Howard Shore: Right. There's dignity, and honor and bravery in
that piece. So, I used the Hardanger as the call to it. It's a Norwegian fiddle that has sympathetic strings, it
has a very specific sort of Nordic sound to it. And that became a
sort of dominant sound as part of the Rohan music.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 56
(20) |
On Screen:
Houses of Healing |
Music Playing:
Arwen's Song |
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Aragorn, as the king-to-be of Gondor
is attempting to revive Éowyn, to bring her back from her illness,
and you hear Arwen's voice and it's such a great moment....it's such
a great idea, because it connects the two women....it connects Arwen
and Éowyn by their love for Aragorn. And seeing Aragorn and
Éowyn....and he places his hand on the side of her face....only a
king can heal. He's showing the moment that he is becoming king, and,
also, by becoming
king he is taking Arwen as his king. It's a really beautiful piece that
was created for that scene, and so having the Arwen song that we
really wanted to use in the film, Fran suggested it in Houses of
Healing. We wrote a piece called 'Twilight and Shadow' and that's
sung by Renee Fleming, and that's what you actually hear.
note from Magpie:
The above statement is a bit confusing
due some editing of HS's commentary. DA said this at a moviemusic
thread in their old forum:
I can understand the confusion
surrounding what seem to be Howard's comments on the DVD
commentary. But if you listen closely, you can hear that HS'
comments have been edited, with a few sentences cut for timing.
It almost makes it seem that Fleming's singing is being heard in
the Houses of Healing (of course, I don't know that anyone is
going to confuse Tyler's singing with Fleming's, but...) His
statement regarding "Twilight and Shadow" actually refers to
what replaced Arwen's Song after it was pulled from Arwen's
departure scene.
Doug Adams elaborated:
Arwen’s Song was originally
written (by Howard Shore) around the time of The Two Towers (for
the scene where Arwen is leaving Rivendell on her way to the
Undying Lands*). It
was recorded well, well before the film was nearing a final
edit. Nevertheless, back at this point Arwen’s departure from
Rivendell*, and subsequent vision, was a TTT scene, not an ROTK
scene. (Remember, they had originally planned to stick Arwen
into Helm’s Deep to ratchet up the excitement—a plan they wisely
decided against.)
So the scene and the song were
saved for ROTK. It was then decided that it didn’t work to have
Arwen singing about her own situation… a little too meta and
self-reflexive. So the piece was pulled, and replaced with the
Fleming piece, which was written with the ROTK score proper.
Jump ahead now… the Sissel piece
was written for the transition of post-battle Pelennor into the
Houses of Healing scene in the ROTK Extended Edition. (Shore met
Sissel in performances of the LOTR Symphony.) After this piece
was written and recorded, it was decided that Arwen’s Song—which
was STILL unused at this point—should be placed under Houses of
Healing, so the Sissel piece was removed. Since it was a
complete composition, and the only work featuring Sissel, Shore
rescued the composition by placing it under the ROTK fan scroll.
So therefore, you ended up with
Arwen’s Song written for TTT moved to the ROTK: EE, and the
Sissel song written for ROTK: EE moved to the end credits. Only
the Fleming piece remained where it was intended, though that,
too, was obviously replacing the first appliance of Arwen’s
Song.
In the long run, the order of
the composition was:
Arwen (Tyler)
Fleming
Sissel
All works were composed by
Shore.
*quote from Doug's FilmScoreMonthly's Nov 2007
podcast: FSMROTKQ&A - FSM's inside look at The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King: The Complete Recordings Boxed Set
and The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films book. He is
referring to the point in her journey where she has her vision
of Eldarion... not the point (which still remains in TTT) where
the Elves, including Arwen, depart Rivendell with lanterns in
their hands.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 60-61
(24-25) |
On Screen:
Aragorn
looks in the Palantír
The Host of the West rides out of Minas
Tirith |
Music Playing:
Gondor Theme |
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(The other members of the post
production commentary team have been discussing issues regarding
cutting/editing the movies)
Peter's -- as he's editing the film, I'm
composing and writing it, and I'm working with him as he's editing it. He would edit in threads of the
movie; Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas... a thread, journey. And he would edit
quite a lot of that. By doing that you were writing those scenes
very linearly, but then he would intercut the scenes. This is a very
important thing to understand. Once they were intercut, scenes
actually play differently, because of what's coming before them and after
them. And the thread of the story is shaping and unfolding as Peter
does the intercutting. And actually once he does it, and then he's
reshaping the intercutting. So, it's all changing to a degree. You
may write it, and think it's a certain way, but then you realize --
once the intercut is done -- you realize the positioning of it in the
film, that it actually has a much more central part to the film.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 61
(25) |
On Screen: Faramir and
Éowyn
embracing in the Houses
of Healing |
Music Playing:
Flute or Pan Flute music |
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Here is a sound, that in this particular
piece, is a little more evolved. And the piece is a new piece, in
the sense that their relationship is new.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 66
(30) |
On Screen: Frodo and Sam
on the mountain
"Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo?" |
Music Playing:
whistle |
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You want a depth and coherence and emotion
and weight to it. You want to get it right. You feel like Frodo, you
know, you're walking up to the end...you're struggling up that
hill...the Ring's getting heavier and heavier. And there's going to
be a point when it's going to go over. And that's why you could
create the levels of the drama of Sam and Frodo going up Mount Doom
and the battle raging in front of the Black Gate. You weren't
struggling with it, you had the tools and the experience at that
point. So that's how those scenes were created.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 74
(38) |
On Screen: The
Coronation,
Arwen comes
to Aragorn |
Music Playing:
Arwen's Theme |
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Return of the King was many films in one.
And everything after the destruction of the Ring and the eagles
saving Frodo and Sam -- everything after that is a complete movie
production. It certainly was in terms of writing it, and the detail
in writing that section of it. But it was also a great release;
it was a way of culminating the story; a way of resolving all the thematic
material you had used for hours and hours before that. And Aragorn becoming king: if,
musically, the scenes before that led up to that...you would
reference elements of that; you would reference elements of Gondor,
and the Fellowship theme, and Éowyn, and Arwen in that scene. All
little fragments of pieces. And of course, it would feel right if it
were true. Returning to the Shire....the
coronation...those are all resolutions of things that have happened
before. You could only return to the Shire because you had had the
Shire music in Fellowship of the Ring. You had returned to a place
that you knew, and the music reflected that. And it felt right.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 75
(39) |
On Screen:
A solemn toast at the Green Dragon
Sam approaches Rosie
Sam and Rosie's Wedding |
Music Playing:
Fragrance of Ithilien
Rural Setting of the Shire/Hobbit Theme
Shire B Theme |
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Dermot Crehan is a part of our family.
He's a great instrumentalist, soloist; he plays the Irish Fiddle and
the Hardanger fiddle, principally, in the film. He plays a solo that is just
breathtaking, it's actually one of my favorite moments. The Hobbits
have returned to the Shire, and they go back to the pub and Dermot
plays this solo that's so breathtaking and heartbreaking, I love
it. (This is the Fragrance of Ithilien music.)
The Shire theme relates to the film because it relates to Frodo, and
Sam. You could write the pieces because you could take it down to a
small area. It could be a glance. It could just be the way Frodo
looks at Sam. You could write the music based on that. Because it's
just pure emotion. You're just writing from an emotional response to
the characters. And it has to do with their performances, and the
way they move in those characters. There's certain expressions the
actors brought to it, and that music is written and created around
that expression and then expanded enormously through the film.
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Disc: 2
Chapter: 77
(41) |
On Screen:
Ending Credits |
Music Playing:
Into
the West and additional credit music |
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When we started working on Return of the
King we made a list of artists, Fran and I did, who we would love to
work with, who we thought would be great voice for the film. And it
was an important moment because it had to carry the weight of the
whole trilogy. So that's how Annie became involved, and then Fran
and I collaborated with her on the writing of the song. She, of
course, sang it amazingly, and that's how that grew.
Writing "Into the West" with Fran, we wanted the song to feel like it
belonged in the Shire. It had the simplicity of the Shire. And it
was just thinking like that, because the end of the movie is about
Frodo, and is about the Shire, and it did end in the Shire. It's
where you're left, in the last scene. So it's somewhat Shire/Grey
Havens. The song, to me, is Frodo, but there's a bit of Sam in it as
well. And...it was an expression of that, really.
It's just a great, fun release for
me. And I also feel that after all these years, where you're happy
that you finished, that completed this task that you set out for,
that there is also a post-partum feeling to it.
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