Haven't you ever feel like you're a watching movie with the perfect soundtrack, beautiful, fitting, and most importantly on point with everything is happening in the movie? Like every moment is exalted by the music and the music is more beautiful because of it _{and you start crying because he said: "you bow to no one" and everybody bows and it is so beautiful NO YOU'RE CRYING!!!} today we're gonna talk exactly about that, the magic behind the music on film within The Lord of the Rings Film Score

Source: GIPHY

I think I should start with something that should be obvious but is not so, the difference between a Film Score and a Soundtrack the latter is are a series of songs and tracks _{wow surprise, tracks} accompanying and synchronized to a film _{or videogame, why we should hate, right?} and then released commercially, _ca-ching! meanwhile the Film Score is an original musical composition made just for accompanying the film, this is usually performed by an orchestra, chorus, and they are generally composed with the help of the director of the movie.

The Lord of the Rings Film Score was composed by the Canadian composer Howard Shore born in 1946 in Ontario _eh he has composed music for more than 80 movies _{no push over guys} however his major success came when he composed the music for the trilogy, which made him win three Academy Awards, besides he has also won three Golden Globes Awards and four Grammy Awards _{the dude even has a Cannes Award c'mon this guy deserve all of the pipeweed he can smoke, crack open a barrel of Old Toby!}

One of the main weapons this guy used _{aside of his immense talent} was the power of the Leitmotif this is a recurring musical phrase used to link feelings, characters, places or ideas, this was popularized by XIX century's german composer Richard Wagner who used extensively in his work but especially in his Der Ring des Nibelungen the famous nordic themed opera _{you know, the Valkyrie, and Sigfried and all that, I know you know even when you think you don't know}

The amazing thing is that you can use the Leitmotif to somewhat rhyme ideas and themes along in your musical composition and The Lord of the Rings Film Score have at least four main Leitmotif one is the Lothlorien of Elves Theme, the very first one you hear even when you can't see anything on the screen, this theme is used to transmit a mysterious feeling, ominous and ancient, perfect for setting us in this vast fantasy world we're about to dive in

Source: GIPHY

But just when the title card of the movie appears on screen another of our themes begins and it's the Ring's theme, not just welcoming the name of the trilogy but introducing as well the object which we will track all the way to Mordor, besides along the prologue we will hear the theme of Sauron, purposely composed very similar to the Ring theme because as Gandalf said _{ha ha, I nailed this one!}

Now that the prologue ended our attention focuses elsewhere, the narrator changes _{this time is Bilbo talking} as do the music in the movie, now we are accompanied by the Shire theme, light playful and made to warm our hearts with a feeling of home and peace, as all the things shire should be _{thanks Shore you made me nostalgic for a place that doesn't even exist} personally I think this theme is one of the best in all movies history to achieve this, I can't hear this without feeling a longing for a green and lash hill in the horizon

But just as the narrator set us at the beginning of our story the music changes again to the theme of The Fellowship of the Ring as the subtitle of the movie appears in from of our eyes _{I'm ready to cut anyone who says these movies are bad} the very same theme we hear when we see our nine heroes journeying south

Source: GIPHY

These are our main Leitmotif for the trilogy and Howard Shore makes a magnificent job intertwining them with the moods and feelings along the almost 12 hours _{extended versions are the only versions, sorry} of the movies as he wanted to give the Score a feel of classical opera, of course there are other themes as the Rohan and Gondor themes that play a huge roll in the movies driving not just the characters but even the plot forward but none are as prevalent and repeating as these four, I invite you to watch these masterpieces again and pay attention to the work of the composer to grasp another dimension of this magical journey, Howard you're a beast!

---

Other Sources

Film score | Wikipedia
Howard Shore | Wikipedia
Letimotif | Wikipedia
Lord Of The Rings: How Music Elevates Story | Nerdwriter1
Lord of the Rings: How Howard Shore Created a Masterpiece (1 of 3) | Inside the Score
Lord of the Rings: How Howard Shore Created a Masterpiece (2 of 3) | Inside the Score
Howard Shore - Creating The Lord Of The Rings Symphony

THANKS FOR READING!

Source: GIPHY