The Lord of the Rings Suite

With his congenial score for Peter Jackson’s monumental Lord of the Rings-Trilogy Howard Shore has without any doubt re-written film history. The way in which the Canadian interweaves the manifold instrumental colours and multilingual voices to an organic and archaically epic sound painting over 12 hours of movie by using an unparalleled complex leitmotiv technique has no peer. It is truly a film score grand act. Tonight’s »Grand Suite« is a world premiere, as it has been created especially for the occasion of our film music gala. It includes the highlights from all three scores. At this point it is impossible to amplify the scenic connections or units of the rich inventory of themes and motives – literally whole books have been written about this matter! The ones who know the movies will be able to »hear out« one or more vivid image sequences. The rest of us can simply lean back and allow ourselves to be swept away into another world. Good (film-)music speaks for itself anyway. We follow Frodo and his fellows – from the gloomy »The Prophecy« and the shire (»Concerning Hobbits«), along the river Anduin (»The Great River«) to Rohan (»The Riders of Rohan«). With the help of the mighty trees Ents (»The Last March of the Ents«) and beacons (»The Lighting of the Beacons«) finally the destruction of the ring at Mount Doom succeeds (»The End of all Things«). Our journey ends with Frodo’s farewell (»The Grey Havens«) and Shore’s Oscar winning, melancholic but hopeful song »Into the West«.