LvT: In an interview at the time (for Classicfm), you mentioned that your guiding principles were “everything that is green and good”, something you share with Tolkien himself. Even though this is a large, epic novel about war, at the centre of it, it’s the intimate relationships I found inspiring. I particularly liked the Sam/Frodo relationship, that’s really at the heart of the story. I devoured The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on the bus. I was touring with my rock band Lighthouse and I read a lot on the road. I was reading a lot of fantasy and science fiction back then. HS: I read the books in the late 60s, as many of my friends did. LvT: How familiar were you with the Tolkien’s books before taking on the assignment? Many people have read the LotR books, but don’t necessarily have an intimate knowledge of the characters or plot twists. Shore has also taken home three Golden Globes and four Grammy Awards. He was the original musical director for Saturday Night Live from 1975 until 1980. He’s also noted for a longstanding collaboration with director David Cronenberg, including his score for the opera The Fly, based on Cronenberg’s 1986 movie. His work on the LOTR trilogy earned him three Academy Awards, including one he shares with vocalist Annie Lennox and writer/producer/lyricist Fran Walsh for the Into the West song. Along with the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies, Shore has composed music for more than 80 films. He was a member of Canadian jazz rock band Lighthouse. The Toronto-born composer and multi-instrumentalist studied at the Berklee College of Music after his graduation from Forest Hill Collegiate.
Shore’s ability to create evocative leitmotifs that convey both scene and character, and then weave them into and out of each other, gives the movie its solid emotional underpinning. Once the prologue is over, the action on screen and the musical theme shifts, first to The Shire’s happier leitmotif, then to the inspiring Fellowship theme. A female chorus shimmers above strings in a minor key, leading into the voice of Galadriel, queen of Lothlórien, who narrates the history of the One Ring.Īs her voice continues, the One Ring’s own melancholic theme, played on a moody string section, begins to insert itself, then dominate the score.
It begins with the ethereal sounds of the theme - or leitmotif - of the Lothlórien elves. The opening sequences of the movie illustrate Shore’s genius, and why the score continues to be as popular as the films themselves.
The movie, the first of Jackson’s blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy, was released in Canada and most international markets on December 19, 2001. Composer Howard Shore (Photo: Benjamin Ealovega)īefore audiences see anything on screen, before any other sound, it’s the music of Canadian composer Howard Shore that ushers them into the Middle Earth of Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring.