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To paraphrase Frodo Baggins: It has been 11 years since The Return of the King, and the wound has never fully healed. When all will have been said and done about the Middle-Earth sextology, Howard Shore will be remembered as one of the few members of the creative team who has never, ever lost sight of the heart in Tolkien's stories.
For Battle Of The Five Armies, the same scoring process was put into motion as on Desolation Of Smaug. Howard Shore penned his thematic ideas, had them approved by Peter Jackson, and then proceeded to put down the score onto paper in New York, which was then forwarded to Conrad Pope, who finished the full orchestrations according to Shore's sketches, and conducted the music in Wellington, New Zealand, with Peter Jackson in the booth. Sessions took place in September, with a few pick-ups in October. As with Desolation Of Smaug, the score was locked at that point, and was then editorially conformed for the final cut of the film. The result in Desolationof Smaug was a film version of the score, which was in major parts chopped apart and dialed out, hurting the pace of the movie in some scenes, which could have been avoided, had Jackson and the studio scheduled additional scoring sessions for rewrites, as it was the case with every Ring film, including An Unexpected Journey.
The film result is just as chaotic this time, and you have to decide for yourself if the eradication of scoring up until the last minute, which is also what made Lord of the Rings so refined, and the channeling of Peter Jackson's demands to the conductor's podium through someone that is not Howard Shore, is hitting a problematic spot with you, since there undoubtedly are small orchestration choices in these final two Tolkien scores that are not Shore's, and I think you can definitely hear it to some extent.
The flipside of the whole process is of course that the early finishing of recording sessions allows for a more straightforward album presentation, and a more accurate picture of what is actually in the film, whereas the Lord of the Rings albums (on just one disc too) featured mostly alternates, since the albums had to be locked while scoring was moving into the hottest phase.
The Battle Of The Five Armies album presentation is the same as the previous two albums. Two discs, two versions, with expanded tracks for the limited edition, and an additional booklet. The movie is the shortest of all six Rings films, but it's still surprising that the album is the shortest of the three, with around 95 minutes of score (excluding bonus tracks and Boyd's song) on the special edition. The film is scored almost wall to wall, so there is a good amount, maybe 15 minutes, missing. The tone of the album is mostly very grim, dark, and brutal, and differs from the past two in this regard. There is also significantly more choral work in this score - sadly still without featured soloists, but grand nonetheless.
The album opens with a real stunner, Fire And Water, scoring Smaug's attack on Lake-Town, and his demise. Also shorter on album, it is still a six minute powerhouse with a chilling choral climax, and one of the biggest highlights on the album. We get an intermezzo of reprised Tauriel and Kili music in Shores of the Long-Lake, followed by a new and utterly beautiful theme on solo string and flute for Bard's leadership, before the album shifts into martial mode, and, save for a few breaks, doesn't leave it until Courage and Wisdom.
Highlights are the opening minute of Beyond Sorrow and Grief, which must be some sort of definition for "epic", the way Shore mingles his themes "House of Durin", "Erebor", and "Thorin", backed by resounding male chorus; then a militaristic incarnation of "Erebor" in The Ruins of Dale, and of course any statement of the Woodland Realm theme, which leaves its etheral self behind and shifts, much like everything in this score, into battle mode, accompanied by other recurring motifs, most notably the one playing when the dwarves are thrown into their cells in DoS. Speaking of recurring motifs, it is once again amazing to hear Shore weave his carpet of themes, as if they were always meant to culminate in this, and no other, way. You think you've heard it all every time, and every time you're proven wrong. Guardians of the Three is especially fascinating in this regard. Shore reuses the evil motif from Sauron appearing in DoS, and the Witch King appearing in Minas Morgul in Return of the King, in an eerie fashion, and turns it into a sort of "Sauron Rising" theme. Lothlorien is mingling in counterpoint with the Necromancer skip-beat, the Rivendell arpeggios are heard under a worn statement of Gandalf's theme, and the "Power of Galadriel" music from Fellowship of the Ring reappears. In this regard, BOTFA is similar to Return of the King, in that it doesn't mainly introduce new themes, but develops and mingles the established ones. One should, however, not make the mistake and expect a score in the tone and scope of Return Of The King. These scores are a build-up to LotR, they aren't meant to top them in magnitude. It doesn't mean there are no magnificent moments in the battle, or no choral highlights, but not in the style of Return of the King's grand finale(s).
The Darkest Hour, The Fallen, Sons of Durin, to name some, are all absolute highlights, and will give you chills up and down your spine, but if you look for eruptions of unabashed orchestral and choral grandeur with Wagnerian magnitude, you need to listen to Return of the King, not Battle of the Five Armies. The finale of Lord of the Rings is epic and emotional. The finale of Battle of the Five Armies is brutal. That's the difference. To The Death brings harsh brass, and relentless rhythms (think of the music for Aragorn fighting Lurtz, paired with Legolas fighting Bolg, amped up times ten), before it gives us a martial, and wet-your-pants awesome, statement of Nature's theme, followed by the Eagles' music from the film version of An Unexpected Journey, and finally a tormented choral piece, with soprano, that could possibly creep you out, which ends with some massive chords.
There are countless other details to mention: the goblin motif from An Unexpected Journey Returns, there is a new motif for Gundabad, a new theme for Bard's family (on gorgeous sopranos in Fire And Water), Bilbo's sneaky theme returns, and there is a new amazing theme for Dain Ironfoot, featured in the fantastic Battle for the Mountain, giving the dwarves a Celtic flavour with bagpipes, one of the few remaining colours Shore has not explored already for these films. The theme from An Unexpected Journey for the conflict between elves and dwarves also makes a poignant return. One of the most central themes of this score is still Smaug's material, which is continued in its use for Thorin's gold sickness, drawing the parallel to Smaug.
The real genius in this score is the way Shore closes out the story of the Hobbit, and segues into Fellowship of the Ring in the last two score tracks. There And Back Again closes with a familiar Ring theme statement, and the Shire theme on strings, which brilliantly finishes on the first chord of the Fellowship theme, teasing it, and creating its conclusion in the finale of Fellowship of the Ring. Some may find it too subtle, I think it's brilliant. The closing song is given to us by Billy Boyd, and even though I found it somewhat boring at first, it grew on me immensely, with its touching lyrics, and finally some orchestral dignity instead of strumming street artists and Jackson's friends. The two bonus tracks are a theme presentation (Dragon Sickness), and music from the Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition, which wasn't even featured mostly, and even includes music for a cut scene, namely Gandalf looking into the Palantir.
A bit curious is the drier mixing of the score, especially the percussion, compared to its predecessors, but it's nothing that will be noticed by most people.
I will say that the three Hobbit albums, disregarding the chaotic film version of An Unexpected Journey, present us a fluid work that is, in terms of complexity, skill and execution, on par with Lord of the Rings. It may not be as popular as Rings, which is sadly a byproduct of the films not reaching old heights, and the fact that you cannot recreate the surprise factor, but the feat is just as impressive. Special credit must be given to Howard Shore that he didn't go the obvious road, and made this trilogy, and especially The Battle Of The Five Armies, so epic that it's on the same scale as Return of the King, but that he retained artistic integrity and treated it as what it is, namely a precursor to Lord of the Rings.
Thank you, Howard, for 16 hours of incredible music that can rightfully be called the best in cinema history.
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The story is so engaging and the music makes it just that much better! This is Howard Shore at his very best and I am proud to say that I own this soundtrack. If you are a music and Middle Earth lover like me, this would make a great gift! It definitely captures the mood that this is the end of Middle Earth on the screen. But if this is to end, then let it end with a bang!
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Top reviews from other countries
FloydFan1973
The final foray into Middle Earth... brilliant as always
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 26, 2014Adele
Great score, lacklustre film
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 28, 2016A. J. Montgomery
However none (in my opinion) are as excellent as the Lord of the Rings recordings
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 29, 2015
