The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (With Bonus DVD) [Enhanced, Limited Edition, Soundtrack]

Howard Shore (Composer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Composer: Howard Shore
• Audio CD (December 9, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Enhanced, Limited Edition, Soundtrack
• Label: Warner Bros / Wea
• ASIN: B0000UHFC6
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,567 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. A Storm Is Coming

2. Hope and Memory

3. Minas Tirith - Ben del Maestro

4. The White Tree

5. The Steward of Gondor - Billy Boyd

6. Minas Morgul

7. The Ride of the Rohirrin

8. Twilight and Shadow - Renee Fleming

9. Cirith Ungol

10. Anduril

11. Shelob's Lair

12. Ash and Smoke

13. The Fields of the Pelennor

14. Hope Fails

15. The Black Gate Opens - James Galway

16. The End of All Things - Renee Fleming

17. The Return of the King - Viggo Mortensen

18. The Grey Havens - James Galway

19. Into the West - Annie Lennox

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning musical journery in deluxe package, February 9, 2004

By 

Claude Avary "West Coast Reader" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (With Bonus DVD) (Audio CD)

This deluxe edition of the soundtrack to "The Return of the King" has the exact same music as the regular edition, but comes in a beautiful leather package. Casual listeners should save money and buy the regular edition, but Tolkien fans will want this durable, bookshelf beauty instead. (Being a complete Tolkien nut, I bought both.)

The third of Howard Shore's soundtrack albums to the "Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy is, like the film itself, the best of the best. The albums for both "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers" were superb, stunning orchestral storyscapes that perfectly caught Tolkien's Middle-Earth and were wonderful individual listening experiences on their own, away from the films. The perfect music to read Tolkien by.

But this is the big one. This is the masterpiece. This is some of best film music of the last decade. Shore surpasses himself in every way on this score.

The new major theme for the score is the Gondor Theme, heard in fullest expression in the inspiring track "The White Tree" (actually, this is the music for the lighting of the beacons of Gondor) and also in "Minas Tirith" and the lonely, sad track "The Steward of Gondor," where Billy Boyd provides a haunting song to accompany a massacre. (Boyd's voice is a real surprise -- he sounds professional).

The other themes from the early films return, with Shore adapting them and changing them in surprising ways. You'll thrill to hearing the Rohirrim theme in "The Ride of the Rohirrim" as well as the way the theme introduces the real stand-out track of the album, "The Fields of Pelennor," a masterpiece suite describing various aspects of the battle around Minas Tirith. This track achieves almost a sublime level of action and power (screaming chorus, driving brass, and Shore's characteristic delayed resolution to build suspense) and is the musical highlight of the three albums. (I stood up cheered at the end the first time I heard it, even though I was alone.)

"Shelob's Lair" is also an amazing track, filled with jabbing, crazy strings and a sense of rising panic. You can hear the giant spider moving around in the music and it will make you as afraid as Frodo himself was.

Shore pounds the story into an orchestral rage for "The End of All Things," which is the story's climax and an overwhelming track of rapidly shifting emotions and explosions of choral fury. It will quite wring you out the same way the movie does at this point.

For quieter moments, there are beautiful and inspiring tracks like "Twilight and Shadow" (dealing with Arwen) and the lengthy ten-minute track "The Return of the King," which sums up all the major themes and at last brings us full circle to the sprightly Hobbiton theme first heard back in "The Fellowship of the Ring." Shore ends it all with grace and quiet beauty in the subtle and sad track "The Grey Havens," which uses a theme that had grown throughout the score. This theme then becomes the soft and soulful Annie Lennox song, "Into the West," the perfect conclusion to the album.

I've come across few soundtrack albums as well put together as this. Anyone who loves Tolkien, film music, or great orchestral music, MUST buy this album.

My only complaint? There's so much more music in the film than they could fit on a single CD. A big deluxe double CD with more of the music would be appreciated in the near future.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Howard Shore - A Brilliant Composer, July 4, 2004

By 

Antonio Cunha Silva (Stb, Portugal) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (With Bonus DVD) (Audio CD)

I love the movies and love the soundtracks also! Howard Shore is a brilliant composer.
I heard that late this year or in 2005 will be released a BoxSet with 9 CDs of the complete LOTR Movies Soundtracks in Extended Editions. It's a box with the complete soundtracks to all the LOTR Trilogy Movies as seen on screen - Theatrical Versions - YES!
It will be 2 CDs for FOTR, 3 for TT and another 3 for ROTK and an extra CD with rarities and unreleased music from the films with commentary from Howard himself!!
What a BIG surprise!

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a letdown, December 14, 2003

By 

C. R. Vandenheuvel (Hudsonville, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (With Bonus DVD) (Audio CD)

First of all, I am a devoted fan of Shore's work on the LOTR trilogy. I play these in my car all the time. I'm sure most of the people reading this can relate; so you might respond to this score the same way I did.

In my opinion, you can't really review a CD like this until you've listened to it 5 or 6 times. It's especially hard if you haven't seen the movie. When I first listened to this score, I actually thought it was quite boring! Now that I'm familiar with it, it's not as boring as I thought, but it still is a bit dull especially when compared to the Two Towers score. I would say it is my least favorite of the three.

The problem is that nothing really happens! It's hard to relate to it because most of the thematic material is gone (the Fellowship theme is under-represented, the Frodo/Sam theme appears a bit at the end, the Rohan theme appears one time quite weakly, and Saruman's is gone). We do hear the Gondor theme quite a bit, thankfully. But with so much missing, you need the track list to have any idea what's going on.

It does have its strong points. The best part is probably the Mount Doom section, which features a haunting solo by Ms. Fleming, sandwiched by explosive choral sections. The cameos by Pippin and Aragorn are great. And it's neat to hear some more Shire stuff at the end.

Annie Lennox's song is OK ... it's a nice tune, but I don't really care for her voice and the lyrics are just a bit fluffy. It's not as good as the other two vocal songs. The part after the credits is a huge letdown. It should have been triumphant, but there's just nothing memorable in it.

All three scores have been surprising and unique, and this one is no different. I'm sure it suits the movie perfectly, but taking the disc on its own merits, I just can't help but think it could have been better.

A note on the DVD: I really think New Line has dropped the ball here in that across all the DVDs they have released, they don't give Shore enough time to explain why he wrote the music the way he did. This disc had huge potential for that, but all it really is is 25 minutes or so of behind the scenes. You'll get to see what it's like to compose and record music, but unfortunately we don't get inside Shore's head nearly enough. One final thing--the DVD shows a choir recording an powerful vocal version of the Fellowship theme. Why on earth isn't this on the CD?