[GerateWohl]

I think, from his musically techical education Shore is rather a chamber composer. I seem to remember, that in The Fly he had to deal with a full orchestra for the first time and using full orchestra and choir for LOTR was a lot of learning by doing for him. I read or heard it somewhere. And it makes sense to me.

I guess, Peter Jackson and Howard Shore felt connected as both before LOTR had mainly experience in independent horror movies. At least I could imagine that this played a role. Because Shore didn’t have, like Jackson, no experience with productions of the scale of LOTR.

[Schilkeman]

I find RotK moderately interesting because he’s playing with his full deck of themes, and weaving them in a more mechanically satisfying manner. I still think he’s a mediocre orchestrator, resulting in a kind of muddy, green-brown mass of sound. His rather lumpy sense of rhythm (wild for a jazz guy) and the reverberant recording don’t help, although the OST does have impressive dynamic range. The Hobbit OSTs were more neutered, and worse off for it. The complete recordings certainly have their moments (I’m not a complete monster), but Shore’s underscore is just thoroughly uninteresting, and man, is there a lot of it.

Melody and harmony are the musical elements the scores excel at, but I need those themes to be worked in a more symphonic way to hold my interest for the amount of time Shore is asking. As accompaniment, it is exceptional, and enjoyable as part of a company of multi-media arts used to bring those books to life. As music, it might be less compelling to me than Bruckner, which is saying something.

[Thor Joachim Haga]

OK, so in another thread recently, Malte shared the German Rolling Stone’s top 60 soundtracks — a list that was predictable as hell, but at least contained so many evergreens that I decided to try something: Put their selections into my 3-category system from the first post. Interestingly, the selections seemed to be evenly distributed. But a LOT of classic scores here that I either don’t like (as a listening experience) or am lukewarm to:

Category 1: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, BULLIT, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, SHAFT, SUPERFLY, THE OMEN, MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, DAS BOOT, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, BLADE RUNNER, DUNE, LEGEND, RAIN MAN, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, DRIVE

Category 2: ASCENSEUR POUR L’ÉCHAFAUD, BEN HUR, A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, THE PINK PANTHER, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, BLOW UP, JAWS, TAXI DRIVER, THREE DAYS OF CONDOR, ROCKY, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, DRESSED TO KILL, KRULL, BACK TO THE FUTURE, THE TRUMAN SHOW

Category 3: GONE WITH THE WIND, PSYCHO, WEST SIDE STORY, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE, MIDNIGHT COWBOY, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, AGUIRRE, THE GODFATHER, THE STING, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, HALLOWEEN, APOCALYPSE NOW, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE, BATMAN (it lists the Prince, not the Elfman), BIRTH, UNDER THE SKIN

Not that familiar with them: A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, LA PISCINE, EVERY NIGGER IS A STAR, DAWN OF THE DEAD, JUDGEMENT NIGHT, MILLION DOLLAR BABY

[Author]

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