Composer Howard Shore brings J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary imagination to vivid life with his Academy®- and Grammy® Award-winning score to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Shore’s music expresses Peter Jackson’s film as an immense symphonic work—a uniquely developed vision drawn from centuries of stylistic tendencies.

Part One:

The One Ring

The One Ring is the story’s most proactive element. It has three distinct themes to represent its multidimensional nature.

The History of the Ring 

If the scores can be said to have a central theme, then this minor-moded, time-weary melodic wisp is it. The tune is first heard as “The Lord of the Rings” text appears in The Fellowship of the Ring, and reappears whenever the One Ring changes hands or marks significant progress in its journey. The tune rises and falls in a slow breath-like pattern that serves to anthropomorphize the Ring’s power while suggesting its circular shape.

The Seduction of the Ring

This theme, set in pure, clean choral tones and punctuated by rumbling bass drum strokes, represents the One Ring’s overwhelming allure. The melody drifts through minor scale fragments creating a distant and elusive incantation. The Seduction of the Ring appears three times in Fellowship—first for humming boy chorus; next set to a Quenya text and sung by the boys; and, finally, sung by both boys and women. The Ring’s seductive prowess grows ever more prominent, as does the Seduction theme.

The Evil of the Ring (Mordor/Sauron)

The third theme for the One Ring is an impervious snarl, limited to only four or five pitches, and unwavering in its focus. As with the other ancient races of Middle-earth, Shore treats this theme to Eastern tinted harmonic inflections suggesting a past age. This material stands for the most villainous inclinations of the Ring and for Mordor itself. In Tolkien’s writing, the Evil of the Ring and the evil of Mordor are one and the same—Sauron’s power is intrinsically bound to his forged creation.

The Shire & The Hobbits

This theme doesn’t appear until the film reveals Hobbiton; Bilbo’s appearance in Gollum’s cave does not earn the tune. It’s a concept directly from Tolkien’s writing: until we’ve seen the Shire we don’t know the true nature of a hobbit. In a way, the bravery inherent in this theme develops because it represents the most simple and unheroic aspects of hobbit life—food and drink, comfort and community—yet the hobbits of the Fellowship persevere despite their basic nature. The melody serves a crucial purpose in The Lord of the Rings. It establishes a sense of home, a regular and safe way of life that is threatened by Sauron and the Ring. For all its spectacle and flourish, The Lord of the Rings is primarily about simple themes: friendship, loyalty and the sanctity of home. As situations in Middle-earth worsen, the Shire theme provides a tangible sense of what is at stake.

This theme is composed of basic and unadorned musical elements. The diatonic melody hints at a simple pentatonic scale while the harmonies present only a sensitive handful of chord changes. Because this tune is so simply and flexibly constructed, Shore is able to create four distinct variations out of the material: the Celtic-flavored Rural Setting, the more orchestral Pensive Setting, the religioso Hymn Setting, and the developed Hobbit’s Understanding, which isn’t fully realized until the end of Fellowship.

Gollum

The Pity of Gollum (Sméagol’s Theme) 

This melody stands for Gollum’s sad state of existence, and is tellingly reprised throughout the film whenever Bilbo and Frodo begin to exhibit the creature’s same slavish devotion to the Ring. The theme is based on a series of loosely related minor arpeggios, through which a knobby, twisted melody traipses, bestowing an unusually slippery profile. Gollum is motivationally the most complicated character, and is appropriately matched with this tonally elusive theme.

The Elves

Elven culture hit its zenith centuries before the story of The Lord of the Rings. Appropriately, Shore’s Elf music feels as if it’s from another era. The writing is awash in chromatic harmonies, Eastern influences and unique instruments. The choral passages are also constructed differently, utilizing only gentle women’s voices. Shore favors the more transparent tones of the orchestra—higher voices, clean figures devoid of plush harmonizations, tidy, artful worlds of music.

 Lothlórien

The Lothlórien theme is first heard in Fellowship as Galadriel begins her voice-over introduction. It returns in a more developed form once the Fellowship reaches Caras Galadhon in Lothlórien. In style it’s the most Eastern and exotic of all the Elves’ music. The writing is emotionally unreadable—neither sad, happy, aggressive nor passive, but mysterious and aloof. “Rivendell is more about learning and knowledge,” says Shore, “but this is different. This is a creepier world of Elves who are more mysterious. They could be bad; they could be good—you’re not really sure.”

Rivendell

The Elves of Rivendell are more open to outsiders than other Elven societies, so while their musical material is still touched with a shimmer, it’s less exotic than the Lothlórien theme. Here more familiar orchestral instruments flourish in layers of writing that places an acclivous figure for female chorus and a series of arcing arpeggios amidst glinting chimes, harps and string harmonics. Both principal melodies are built out of vaulting lines that suggest augmented harmonies. The two interrelated Rivendell figures are constructed so that the motive’s contour is recognizable even when the pitch content is changed. This contour appears throughout the scenes in the Elf realm, constantly ebbing back and forth in its signature style, but presenting different faces of prestige and concern.

THE DWARVES

In contrast to his florid Elf music, Shore’s Dwarf music is blocky and stout, full of basso profundo timbres and hard-cornered rhythms. It, too, depicts a culture in decline, though the ruins of Dwarf society are seen specifically relating to the danger of Moria. So while the Elf music is distantly extravagant, the Dwarves’ is frequently threatening and haunting.

Moria

The Moria theme, a stony rising line in parallel fifths, is scattered throughout the Fellowship’s journey through the dark. Peter Jackson’s directive was that Moria’s music should be “voices from hell.” “It’s all men singing in ancient Dwarvish,” explains Shore. The music of Moria is an unsettling reminder of what the Dwarves’ unchecked expansion awoke in the deep. The gruff singing is transformed into unrelentingly brutal chanting as the Balrog begins its approach.

Dwarrowdelf

The Dwarrowdelf writing contains fewer references to the coarseness of Dwarf culture because this was the Dwarves’ greatest accomplishment: a grand city expressing the loftiest aspirations of the generally utilitarian Dwarves. The theme expresses the Dwarves’ pride as well as their folly. It’s scored with bold French horn lines to create a sense of weight and solidity, but each leap upwards droops sadly back down almost immediately.

The Dwarrowdelf theme is twice reiterated in downtrodden variations: as Gimli discovers Balin’s tomb, and as Merry and Pippin leap onto the Cave Troll’s back to avenge Frodo. “Merry and Pippin jump on the cave troll and, with their little daggers, try to bring down this huge monster. They’re on his head just poking into it, which probably feels like little pinpricks. It shows the hobbits and their bravery, but you hear this theme of the ancient world—the grandeur and the glory of this once great place,” explains Shore.

THE WORLD OF MEN: GONDOR

The Fellowship of the Ring marks the first appearance of two themes related to the world of men: the Realm of Gondor theme and the Minas Tirith (Silver Trumpets) theme. However, in this first film each of these melodies appears only once, hinting at the future significance of the material. The Realm of Gondor debuts during the Council of Elrond when Boromir learns of Aragorn’s heritage and speaks of the burden borne by Gondor and his father, Denethor. The melody begins in solo French horn, but drops deeper in the orchestra with each iteration. It eventually comes to reside in the double basses—Gondor has fallen upon hard times.

Later in the film, as Aragorn and Boromir rest in Lothlórien and discuss the future of Gondor, Shore plays the Minas Tirith (Silver Trumpets) theme, another beautiful brass line that represents everything that mankind can be, should it chose the nobler path. Although they pass rather quickly in Fellowship, these foretelling glimpses into primary material of The Return of the King illustrate the level of detail and forethought running through the scores.

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

Like the courageous coalition itself, Shore’s theme for the Fellowship of the Ring is assembled by fragments throughout the first film and scattered into shards thereafter. Its first tentative tones accompany Frodo and Sam’s passage through a Shire cornfield—the de facto beginning of the Fellowship. These snippets are expanded slightly as new members join the hobbits, but it’s not until they reach Rivendell that the theme completely forms. During the Council of Elrond the melody begins to stir in the midrange strings and low brass, as members of the future Fellowship volunteer their services. When Elrond declares them the Fellowship of the Ring, Shore opens the melody into a fully realized heroic theme. “It’s the first time you hear it in its full orchestration,” comments Shore. “It’s such a great moment. It had to be just right.” The Fellowship theme strikes a unique posture. It is receptive and sympathetic, but at the same time steely and unaffected—a theme for a benevolent yet steadfast mission. Though the writing is harmonically modern (the tune itself is in a minor mode while its harmonization is major), the theme suggests the relics of Middle-earth’s ancient glory. After Gandalf falls in the Mines of Moria the Fellowship theme begins to break down, and is seldom heard in the same heroic guise.

THE MONSTERS OF MIDDLE-EARTH

Howard Shore’s scores play, first and foremost, to the cultures and settings of Middle-earth. However, in certain instances the composer was offered frightful creatures that were so unordinary, or posed such a potent threat to the Fellowship, that the writing encapsulates their danger in a singular musical world. Each of these worlds is utterly unique in flavor, not only to the other “Monster” worlds, but to mainstream Middle-earth. Here is found some of Shore’s most adventurous and modern writing, full of Twentieth Century compositional techniques, unusual orchestrations, and other alien musical timbres.

The Watcher in the Water

Outside the Gates of Moria, Merry and Pippin mindlessly toss stones into the lake. Here Shore begins the world of the darkly pliable Watcher music with a double bass line that bends pitches by quartertones. As the Watcher’s limbs wriggle free of the black waters, the score transforms into a convulsing skein of tones, gurgling and grabbing in a disturbing musical shiver. The Watcher music is almost entirely aleatoric; Shore defined the pitch material, durations, and playing style, but the members of the orchestra are not required to align their performances. The tangled musical web results from dozens of individual performances gnarling around each other, and the dissonant eruptions of brass that spike through the mesh.

The Cave Troll

The Cave Troll is the second creature the Fellowship encounters on their quest. Where the Watcher’s music was a squirming Medusa’s Head of sounds, the Cave Troll’s is pounding, sharp and heavy. Plodding lines for timpani and low brass follow the enraged Troll around the room while piercing outbursts in muted and flatterzunge brass slice through.

The Balrog

The Balrog’s music, like the fiery creature itself, doesn’t suddenly appear on the scene, but steers its way through the caverns, slowly gathering strength on its approach towards the Fellowship. As a permanent resident of Moria it is treated as a musical extension of the Dwarf music, prodded and pierced by the grunting chorus of male voices. The emphasis here is on the lowest tones available to Shore’s palette, with which he creates a primeval trellis of savagely rhythmic material built off open harmonies. Over this, queasy brass dissonances sort through Moria material, disassembling and reassembling its rising pitches into clashing clusters of overlapping harmonies. This is the Dwarf style taken to its furious extreme, a dense compilation of weight and rage.

ISENGARD

Tolkien scholars have long designated the conflicting goals of the industrial and natural worlds as one of The Lord of the Rings’major dramatic themes, and Shore’s material follows suit with Isengard’s asymmetrically mechanical music. “It’s the industrial might of Middle-earth,” describes the composer.

Isengard/Orc Theme

This is Isengard’s equivalent of the Fellowship theme, defying its burnished heroism with a sinewy show of impious force. It’s generally scored for low brass in their deepest registers. Like Isengard’s vicious culture, this theme is free of any artifice or decoration. It is simple, cruel music; music of metal and wheels.

Five Beat Pattern

It is the Five Beat Pattern that most often represents Isengard’s presence in the film. This thunderous, hammering rhythm is scored for collections of metal bell plates, anvils, bass drum, Japanese taiko drum, and metal chains beating the strings inside a grand piano.

MORDOR

Shore’s music for the Land of Mordor is set as the diametric opposite of the music for the hobbits and the Shire. Each setting receives a bundle of primary and secondary thematic material, but where the Shire’s music is familiar and warmly inviting, Mordor’s is morbid, threatening and off-putting. This music favors low strings and the deepest registers of brass, fused to create a thick fog of overtones. Mixed choruses erupt into primal rhythms with abnormally close-spaced harmonies for a towering, ritualistic effect.

Mordor/Sauron (The Evil of the Ring) 

The primary motif for Barad-dûr and Sauron is identical to the One Ring’s Evil theme. (The three are practically interchangeable story elements.) Each step of the quest brings the Fellowship closer to Sauron, and the unrest the Ring sows grows more potent over time. Shore uses this theme to portray the Ring’s “character,” but it also represents its effect upon the world. In a chilling moment, this theme appears during the Council of Elrond as the Ring drives the participants into heated argument.

The Ringwraiths 

The Ringwraiths, Sauron’s malicious ambassadors to Middle-earth, earn the most prominent and ritualistic of the Mordor themes. Philippa Boyens wrote the Black Speech text, “The Revelation of the Ringwraiths,” as an aggressive renouncement for the ghostly figures in black. Shore sets the text as a gathering storm of musical forces. Although it is sometimes presented in a purely instrumental guise, the theme is primarily choral, adding to its ceremonial flavor. The melody line is almost mono-rhythmic and without contour, creating its sense of deadly anticipation through ever-expanding instrumentation and harmony.

NATURE’S RECLAMATION

In Shore’s score, Nature maintains its own music culture the same as the hobbits, Elves or Dwarves. It is a world slower to react, more reluctant to marshal its forces against Sauron and his minions, and so the Nature music emerges gradually over the course of the films. One of The Fellowship of the Rings’ most ethereally beautiful moments arrives courtesy of a moth to which Gandalf entrusts his rescue from Orthanc. Shore introduces a boy soprano singing what will become the Nature’s Reclamation theme. This melody is an antidote to the industrial beating of the Isengard music: broad and organic in shape, gentle and natural in expression. It represents Nature’s resistance of encroaching evil with simple constructions: scale steps trickling upward and downward, set in the purest tone colors in Shore’s arsenal.  Though Nature’s Reclamation does not recur in The Fellowship of the Ring, by the end of The Two Towers it will have achieved operatic proportions.

Original text copyright © 2005-2014 by Doug Adams

Additional information available in the book The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films by Doug Adams, and online at musicoflotr.com.