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After all is said and done, I was left
with a smattering of music (and odd sounds) that didn't fit
elsewhere and/or didn't deserve its own page. I decided to morph them all
onto a page as 'odds and ends.' It's a mixture of incidental music,
unconfirmed small motifs, and interesting observations.
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BOROMIR'S REDEMPTION, WOUNDING, AND DEATH - A look at the
suite of music connected with Boromir's last moments (FOTR). |
THE DEAD MARSHES - Connections to
György Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna"; Echoes of
the Battle of Dagorlad (prologue) (TTT).
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LAMENT FOR HALDIR - Echoes of
Gandalf's Lament and sharing a note with a fallen Uruk (TTT). |
THE FRAGRANCE OF ITHILIEN - A
bit of melody heard twice. (ROTK). |
THE HEARTBEAT OF THE SHIRE The
bodhrán taps out a heartbeat for the Shire (entire trilogy). |
MORIA VOICES - Taking
a closer look at Maori Men's Choir, grunters, and haka (FOTR
- on
the Moria page). |
HOBBITS
AT PLAY - Taking
a closer look at music used for a series of Merry and
Pippin's playful moments as well as Sméagol and Déagol's
fishing scene. (entire
trilogy - on the Shire Theme's
Playful Setting page) |
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Moria
Voices
FOTR
Nowhere, in the LOTR soundtrack, is the
cultural music as dependant on voice as in Moria. In fact, Peter
Jackson's vision of the music was it should be "voices from hell."
(CR-FOTR Liner Notes, page 18)
The journey through Moria starts rather
quietly with a 50
piece Maori-Samoan Men Chorus droning lyrics from
Durin's
Song. Once
the Fellowship realizes there is a bigger menace than Orcs in the
dark, 10 'grunters' get added to the choir who beings chanting
lyrics from
The
Balrog. These 'grunters' are, in fact, rugby players. "It’s
an all male choir cause the Dwarves were primarily a male race. Tolkien said that female
Dwarves looked like the male Dwarves. Like they were hard to
tell them apart. It’d be the only place in the film where you hear
all male singers. So I mean all of those little details kind of
helped create the world that the Fellowship would go to." (FOTR Audio Commentary)
The chanting is reprised in the TTT as we follow the two Maiar on
their descent into the depths of Moria. Once they break through into
the underground cavern, female voices join the men,
"signifying that the battle has
taken the two into a new realm." (CR-TTT Liner Notes, page 14)
HS COMMENT (FOTR Audio Commentary)
Some of the
places this music is heard in FOTR:
For the chanting, Howard Shore took
inspiration in the Maori tradition of haka. Haka is a postural dance
performed en masse by a group. One form of haka (out of many) was
"originally performed by warriors before a battle, proclaiming their
strength and prowess in order to intimidate the opposition." (Wikipedia)
Today it is most recognized as being used by the New Zealand Rugby
Team, the
All Blacks.
THIS SITE has a nice video about the haka.
HS COMMENT (FOTR Audio Commentary)
HS COMMENT (FOTR Appendices Comment)
At the end of pickup shooting for ROTK,
the stunt team did a Haka for the 'two Kings' of LOTR: Viggo
(Aragorn) and Bernard (Théoden). Not to diminish their respect for
Bernard in any way, but I think this gesture was born from their
love for Viggo. It, like the all the extras for ROTK, is moving to
watch.
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Boromir's
Redemption, Wounding and Death
FOTR
This is almost a suite of music that
accompanies Boromir's last minutes in Middle-earth. When doing work
on the soundtrack, I often find myself listening carefully to the
audio track of the movie through headphones, but not watching the
images. Somehow, this can heighten the emotional experiences of
scenes for me. There are many poignant moments in the movie +
soundtrack experience, but this segment is, for me, the most
poignant. I will repeat what I said in the first version of my
website: "I defy anyone to put their disc in the computer, pop on
headphones and watch this scene without crying."
Merry and Pippin's most excellent diversion:
Merry and Pippin are trying to divert
the Uruks attention away from Frodo and it's working. They look
around to realize that they are terribly outnumbered and
overpowered. But Boromir is coming. He is running, running,
running to intercept the Uruks before they reach the Hobbits.
(I love this shot of Boromir running.) An adult choir sings
lyrics from the
Ring Verse, the
same source text for the Wizard Fight. When I first compiled
this music together as a suite, I didn't know what the source
text was. But even though identifying the source text as the
Ring Verse
confirms this music represents the Uruks, I still think it works
well to keep it here. The time stamps are
HERE.
Redemption:
Boromir has behaved quite badly with Frodo but, horrified as he is
at his behavior, he's rallied to come to the aid of Merry and
Pippin. He is outnumbered by the Uruks, and Merry and Pippin fight
along side. The lyrics sung here (by an adult choir) are an Elvish
restatement of
Faramir's
words
(The Death of Boromir, part1) in TTT (book),
‘I do not love the sword for it’s brightness or the arrow for it’s
swiftness. I love only that which they defend.’
( TTT, Book 4, Chapter V, The
Window on the West)
The singing stops just as Lurtz
pulls his bow to shoot Boromir. Time stamps are
HERE.
Wounding:
This music changes once Boromir is
wounded. All background noise drops out and only the sweet but
melancholy boy's choir with orchestration is heard. The lyrics
are The
Death of Boromir, part2. Even after three arrows penetrate
his chest, Boromir continues to fight. Time stamps are
HERE and HERE.
This music is part of the theme,
A Noble End (in the category,
Middle-earth: All Shall Come to Darkness).
Farewells
A halting piece of music plays as
Aragorn comes to the mortally wounded Boromir. Boromir
confesses. "I have failed you all." But Aragorn disagrees. "No,
Boromir. You fought bravely. You have kept your honor." Boromir
despairs, "The world of Men will fall and all will come to
darkness." Aragorn will not give up hope and Boromir dies
declaring him, "My Captain. My King." This music is also part of
the theme, A Noble End.
Death:
Immediately after his death, a sparse
boy's choir (it almost sounds like a single voice...) sings with
no orchestration, joined after a moment by humming. The lyrics
are the first line from
Faramir's
words
(The Death of Boromir, part1)
,
‘I do not love the sword...' Time stamps are
HERE.
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Dead Marshes
TTT
I thought it was worth looking at
this music a couple of reasons.
First is the sound of the Marsh. It
is all a bit disorienting and surreal. If one listens
carefully enough, one can hear faint echoes of voices...
presumably from across time. The faces in the Dead Marshes
were from those lost in the
Battle of Dagorlad. This was not the final battle in the War of
the Last Alliance, which we see in the prologue to FOTR. But I
think, for the movie's sake, we are meant to make that connection. In fact, if one listens closely in the Dead Marshes, one can hear
Elrond call out in Elvish, "Tangado haid!" (Hold positions)
Second, the
combination of the music, voices and sound effects in the Dead
Marshes creates an effect similar to György Ligeti' s
work. (Michael
McLennan
pointed this
out in his TTT Analysis and I immediately agreed with him. I first
heard Ligeti on the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack in 1968) He compared the music used in Frodo's underwater scene to Ligeti. That music quite possibly replaced an
earlier selection that can be found on
TTT-OST and the CR. To my ears, that earlier composition
sounds even more like Ligeti.
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Lament for Haldir
TTT
Elizabeth Fraser sings the Lament for Haldir as Haldir is
mortally wounded at Helm's Deep.
Michael
McLennan
comments that the
melody for this lament is based on the
Lament for Gandalf. I thought I heard hints of the
Lothlórien Theme in there. I took a look at the
sheet music for all three melodies and it seems that the Lament
for Haldir has more in common with the
Lament for Gandalf than the
Lothlórien Theme. Perhaps there's bits of both in there.
The AS-TTT says, "Shore’s composition takes a similar shape (to
Lament for Gandalf), a call and response for solo soprano and female
chorus."
That long sustained note that plays
before Ms Fraser starts singing is a distinctive feature. Recently, as I watched the standoff scene between the Uruk-hai and
the defenders of Helm's Deep, I noticed something interesting. As that first Uruk-hai falls, taken out by an arrow inadvertently
loosed by a Rohan archer, that same long sustained note is played. It may be completely coincidental but I thought it was worth noting.
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Fragrance of Ithilien
ROTK
This really just a bit of melody heard twice.
In each case, the first four bars as the same but after that the
melody diverts into its own tune. The name can be found on the
MusicNotes for The Return of the King (Track 17 music) and
probably just refers to the iteration heard as Frodo awakens in
Ithilien. The AS-ROTK describes it as "the Shire’s sweet melodies
... laced with hints of the Fellowship theme" (Doug Adams). The name comes from the book, although it is from Sam's
perspective upon awakening, not Frodo's... who is already awake in
the story.
When Sam awoke, he found
that he was lying on some soft bed, but over him gently
swayed wide beechen boughs, and through their young leaves
sunlight glimmered, green and gold. All the air was full of
a sweet mingled scent.
He remembered that smell:
the fragrance of Ithilien.
(From ROTK, book 6, Chapter 4: The Field of
Cormallen)
It is not labeled as a separate theme or
setting of the Shire theme in the CR-ROTK material but I think it
works to associate the music in the two scenes and I like the name.
So let's keep it here in Odds and Ends... shall we?
Places this theme is heard in
ROTK:
A comment about that passage in the
book:
This delight of
the senses is a stark contrast to their experience in Mordor.
It's like turning on a light in a room that has slowly grown
dark with the fall of night. It also is significant that the
point of view is Sam's. I went through the book from this point
and documented our view of Frodo. What I found was
remarkable. We are slowly being weaned from Frodo. (It began
before this moment, this was just the moment I chose to start
at.) We don't see things from Frodo's point of view very often
anymore. When people ask him questions others will answer. When
he asks questions he doesn't receive an answer. We even hear
descriptions of how others direct his actions. Just like the
slow darkening of the room, Frodo's place in this story is
fading. And it's so gradual it's not readily apparent. So on one
hand, the expected progression of the story would be towards
happiness because the evil is conquered. And we are happy. But
there's this melancholy hanging over the celebrations that is
hard to put our finger on. I think it has a lot to do with the
crafting of the story... this gradual fading of Frodo.
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Heartbeat of the Shire
TRILOGY
This is a distinctive, quick little
beat played on the
bodhrán under various Shire/Hobbit
music. Those first few months I was
listening to FOTR, this quiet little patter really stood out to me.
It struck me immediately as the steady, reliable and comforting
sound of a heartbeat. I like how the movie kind of starts with it
(after the prologue) and ends with it. Below, I list not only a few
places you can hear it, but give specific times stamps. I believe
this is a element that can drop out with poor sound systems so some
may need to listen carefully.
Places this theme is heard in FOTR:
Places this theme is heard in
ROTK:
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