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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
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2002 Regular
2002 Limited
2002 Limited Internet
2003 Trilogy
2006 Complete
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Composed, Orchestrated, Conducted, and Produced by:
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Howard Shore
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Vocals Produced by:
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Paul Broucek
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Performed by:
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The London Philharmonic
Orchestra
The London Voices
The London Oratory School Schola
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Solo Vocals by:
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Emilia Torrini
Elizabeth
Fraser
Isabel Bayrakdarian
Sheila Chandra
Ben Del Maestro
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Choral Text by:
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J.R.R. Tolkien
Philippa Boyens
Fran Walsh
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Audio Clips:
2002 Original Album:
5. The Uruk-hai (0:29), 145K lord_rings02_5.ra
9. The White Rider (0:29), 139K lord_rings02_9.ra
16. Forth Earlingas (0:30), 152K lord_rings02_16.ra
19. Gollum's Song (0:30), 150K lord_rings02_19.ra
2002 Limited Editions:
20. Farewell to Lorien (0:30), 147K lord_rings02_20.ra
2006 Complete Set:
CD1, 6. The Three Hunters (0:33), 189K lord_rings02_1-6.ra
CD2, 13. Sons of the Steward (0:30), 179K lord_rings02_2-13.ra
CD3, 3. 'Where is the Horse and the Rider?' (0:28), 168K lord_rings02_3-3.ra
CD3, 6. The Breach of the Deeping Wall (0:30), 179K lord_rings02_3-6.ra
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Availability:
The original 2002 album between $14 to $16 in
the stores is the regular U.S. release. The 2002 limited release is indicated by a higher
price and a sticker indicating its "limited" nature on the front plastic. The
musical contents are the same on all the 2002 products except for the inclusion of one
bonus track on the limited editions. The value of the different cover inserts
(on the trading block) is yet to be determined. They could very well end up
useless unless you acquire a whole set of 5 covers. The 2003 trilogy set is essentially the
original three albums from the films combined into one package (with no extra music).
The 2006 set includes the complete recordings for between $55 and $65 (the list retail
price for this set is $15 higher than the complete set of the first score in 2005), and
features the DVD with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound along with three CDs that offer
180 minutes from the score in 16-bit stereo sound. Other higher resolution
variants on sound quality exist on the DVD (see review for details).
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... in the complete set if you are an audiophile or keep the
original album in the front row of your collection.
Avoid it... in the complete set if you are satisfied with the
16-bit stereo sound of the original album and see no need for additional
material or sound quality.
Filmtracks Editorial Review of Original 2002 Albums:
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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: (Howard Shore) The Lord of the
Rings phenomenon strikes once again. Gone are the days of multi-year waits
for fans of popular fantasy motion picture franchises. Only yesterday it seems
that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring took the world by
storm, with its score by Howard Shore becoming the first fantasy epic to win the
Academy Award for Best Original Score in years. Because of the rapid rollout of
this series of films, it is interesting to note that Howard Shore was already
writing music for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when he won that
award. Audiences responded overwhelmingly well to Shore's approach to the first
score, even beyond the expected rush of attention caused by new age sensation
Enya's involvement with the project. Shore managed to single-handedly put John
Williams' Harry Potter entry onto a distant back burner. Like the
expanding editions of the Lord of the Rings DVD, fans have been falling
over themselves to get at more of Shore's music for that film, and luckily for
them, the hasty release of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers should
satisfy their needs --at least for now. Shore insured the continuation of his
epic sound by utilizing the London Philharmonic in a massive colosseum and mixed
with the sounds of two different choirs. The scale of the project is no less
diminished, and no better evidence of that successive effort is the replacement
of Enya with several operatic, new age voices from around the world for this
score.
Shore also continues where he left off in the grand scope of his composition for
this series. As the heroes' journey into peril continues, and the landscape of
Middle-earth descends further into darkness, Shore bolsters his music with an
increased size and thematic sweep. As promised by those involved with the
post-production of the film, the score for The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers is bigger, more diverse, and arguably better than its predecessor.
The instrumentation and use of voices is more powerful than in the previous
film. Instrumentally, Shore adds the Hardanger, a Norwegian fiddle, to represent
the Rohan, while the North African rhaita reed instrument accenting the Mordor
theme, and log drums, dilruba, wood xylophones, and the cimbalon for Gollum all
provide a rich texture for the score. Several solo voices are mixed with the two
choirs for the score as well. The performance of "Gollum's Song" by
Bjork-inspiring and longingly bitter-voiced Emiliana Torrini serves as the sort
of title song for the feature, and Torrini's voice --as well as the others
chosen for performances in the score-- are foreign sounding to enough of a
degree as to color Middle-earth and the World of Men with a fantastic edge of
mystery and intrigue. With the success of Enya's voice, Shore seems interesting
in keeping a vaguely Celtic sound to the vocals. The choirs are mixed elegantly
with the orchestra, providing far more sweeping thematic performances (of both
lofty heights and quiet despair) that occupy several major cues for the film.
Especially effective is Shore's choice to mix the choirs and solo voices so that
they are occasionally indistinguishable, with the solo identity fading in and
out to correspond with the action on screen.
Thematically speaking (and in an epic fantasy, the importance of the themes are
significant beyond all else), listeners need to be prepared for the fact that
Shore has created a cross-over score for The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers. There is no triumphant introduction for the new themes, with sparse
large statements of previous themes, and the score marches to its end with the
obvious implication that the musical journey is not over. That said, Shore does
offer more than enough blasts of theme throughout the center of the score to
appease the thematically-minded listeners. Returning from the first film are the
two central themes: the uplifting Shire theme and the bold Fellowship title
theme. The latter of those receives the spotlight a few times, with an enormous
statement of it (and other recognizable themes) in the "Uruk-hai" cue. The new
themes introduced for the film are perhaps more muddled than expected, perhaps
due to that very fact that their pronouncement isn't a bold in the early
portions of the score as they could have been. To Shore's credit, however, the
style and minor-major key shift techniques that he employed for the original
themes have carried over to the new ones, causing them to blend into the mix
effortlessly for the listener. There are more moments of majestic harmony in
this score, as typified by the "White Rider" and "Hornburg" cues, and Shore
almost always includes the choirs in these cues. The brass is well managed for
heroic interludes, and the bass strings and timpani provide a resoundingly deep
bass for the recording. Shore stays so consistent to Tolkien's world that a few
of the lyrical choral passages are performed in Elvish, and these lyrics are
translated for the listener in the liner notes. Shore's score reaches an
incredible thematic climax in the final four tracks, with his statements of
theme so massive that they set this score a step beyond anything for the
previous film, and perhaps anything in the recent history of the genre.
[Warning: Two paragraphs of ranting to follow]
Not so magnificent is the situation of the music from The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers on album. As could be expected, Reprise Records
descends once more to the lavish depths of commercial despair, cranking out
several different album versions to catch the weary Tolkien fan or Howard
Shore collector with an open wallet. Reprise churned out similar stunts with the
first album, pulling out every marketing gimmick to help catapult the albums for
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring to incredible heights.
For the sequel score, we let the games begin again. The regular $14 album you
see in stores has all the same Shore score from the new film as the two limited,
$23 to $30 albums: the store edition and the internet edition. The regular
release has only the score in a standard jewel case with one of five two-sided
"character cards," one online trading card from the film, a screensaver, the
"Making of the Score" video, and buddy icons. The only extra music on the two
limited editions is the impressive "Farwell to Lorien" performance by Hilary
Summers for the previous film's expanded DVD version. The store-found limited
edition comes in a gold foil embossed, dark blue leatherette CD wallet
containing a 20-page CD booklet and also has a Two Towers image gallery,
two exclusive online trading cards, as well as lyrics and poems. The Internet
limited edition features deluxe leatherette packing, custom "belly-band"
artwork, the 20-page CD booklet, and all five of the printed trading character
cards from the standard jewel case editions. With the Internet edition, you also
get movie trailers, image galleries, lyrics, poems, a score music video and
"Making of the Score" video, screensavers, buddy icons, and (exclusively in the
Internet edition) printable maps of Middle-earth and of Rohan & Gondor, The
Two Towers print & color sets and two online trading cards. Just throw in
fries and a Coke and you're set.
It is difficult to say which of the above is the most offensive. If these people
at Reprise really want to impress us --the serious admirers of Shore's music and
the greater film music community-- then they should flush their trading cards
down the nearest toilet and spend the money it took to produce them on what
everyone really wants: More music from the film. Seriously... how many
people succumb to the fraud described above and purchase all of these gimmicks?
What's the point? Shore's new material is the same on all of these releases.
Compounding their error, Reprise once again requires you to provide your e-mail
address, ZIP code, etc, etc, before you can access any of the special bonus
material. And, for that matter, what if you don't have an Internet connection?
No bonus goodies for you? Last year, we tested their site by signing a specially
tagged e-mail address at Filmtracks to achieve access to the Fellowship of
the Ring bonus material. We received a somewhat respectable 21 SPAM e-mails
from them and Warner Brothers in the following year, but who knows where else
that e-mail address is ending up. Privacy policies aside, it is simply wrong to
require personal information from people in order to access material promised on
the outer packaging. And while we're on the topic of commercial fraud, what is
with these ridiculous trading cards? You get the oversized double-sided ones in
the jewel cases (to hang on the wall, maybe?), and the plethora of online ones
(a silly trend that the Topps company has started with its eTopps phenonemon for
baseball cards, etc). Does anybody really give a shit about these things? Is
anyone going to be buying Beckett Price Guide magazines in ten years just to see
how much these things are worth? Nonsense. Please, Reprise Records, give it a
rest. Do the world a favor just release more of Shore's music. Your pocketbooks
would do just as well.
And that amount of unreleased music from The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers is considerable. Shore originally conceived of four hours of music
for the second film alone, with over three hours actually recorded. Having 73
minutes of music on album at the present moment, this means that over 100
minutes of Shore's material for the full, expanded Two Towers film is
unavailable on commercial album. So if Reprise wants to abandon their
proliferation of buddy icons and put their efforts to an expanded release of the
music itself, then there would certainly be enough material to warrant such a
product. The actual musical presentation of the 73 minutes here, however, is
stunning in and of itself. The sound quality is rich with reverberation that is
necessitated by the fantasy genre. There are people who prefer a masterfully
dampened score that removes the reverberation (or room echoes) from the
recording. However, in the case of The Lord of the Rings music, Shore's
intent was to record the score in a massive room and leave the wash of the
reverberation to further the magical fantasy element of the music's effect. It
may make it difficult to hear individual instruments in the intricate cues, but
the overall effect is superb. Once again, Shore has produced a winner here, and
there is no doubt that this score ranks atop the relatively weak competition in
2002. As a 70-minute listening experience, The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers is an even more stimulating and magical adventure. Despite the fact that
the tracks are mostly out of film order in the middle portions, the music contains more
harmonic beauty and choral magnificence that will, combined with its generous
recording quality, blow you out of your seat at almost a dozen places during its
playing time. Don't hesitate to purchase the regular edition of this
album and hope that in the years to come, more of this fantastic music is
released on album. This time, Shore's music is good enough to overshadow Reprise
Record's ludicrous marketing of it.
Score as Composed for the Film: *****
Score as Presented on the Regular Album: ****
Score as Presented on the Limited Editions: **
Overall Rating: *****
Filmtracks Editorial Review of 2006 Complete Set:
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: (Howard Shore) Fans of
Peter Jackson's trilogy and its three extremely popular symphonic scores
by Howard Shore received a gift from the heavens in late 2005 with the
complete recordings of The Fellowship of the Ring released on one
stunning product. Despite the immense expense incurred by all those
involved with the set's production, it performed better than hoped in
unit sales, confirming the viability of the continuation of set releases
for the other two scores. Less than a year later, a nearly identical set
for The Two Towers has been released, featuring the same format
in presentation and packaging as the set for The Fellowship of the
Ring. As such, a significant portion of the technical and background
discussion that you'll read below in this review will be very similar to
relevant information provided in the updated analysis of The
Fellowship of the Ring. All three films in the trilogy have
experienced extended cuts of the films on DVD, and the original
soundtrack albums, which contained significantly edited and rearranged
snippets of score that often made little sense when compared to what was
heard in the films, continued to suffer from inadequacy. While this
editing of music for the single-CD albums was necessary to give fans
what essentially amounted to a "best of" album for each film, those
edits didn't have the luxury of choosing to include supplemental
material that Shore wrote after the theatrical releases to accommodate
Jackson's longer DVD cuts. Even at a price tag of $50 or more, the first
film's set caused a well-deserved frenzy, for of all three films, it has
often been said that The Fellowship of the Ring was the most
mistreated by its original album edit. While some fans of the trilogy
--people who must have an insane amount of free time on their hands--
have noticed that there are small pieces of music here or there in the
films that aren't included on the sets, 99.9% of listeners will be
hard-pressed to find anything substantial missing from the first two
"Complete Recordings" releases. In fact, the presentation of Shore's
music on these three-CD sets is astonishingly loyal to the films, and
ironically (as to be expected from fickle collectors), the majority of
complaints relating to the music on the sets, while few, are related to
the inclusion of music that some people would rather not have heard. As
said before, these people need to get a life.
As to the quality of the score itself, there is little to critique
about Shore's work that hasn't already been mentioned. All three entries
have been recognized as likely being the most popular, orchestrally
robust scores of the digital age, and what the complete recordings prove
is that Shore provided such mastery in great quantities. As the middle
child, The Two Towers suffers from some of the structural
limitations of accompanying a sequence of events that neither introduces
nor concludes its primary ideas. Even so, the score towered over the
relatively weak field of competing scores of 2002 and, only by
circumstances of confusion over AMPAS rules was the score not nominated
for an Academy Award (the other two scores won the Oscar easily). Some
fans have insisted that the two other scores were superior
representatives of the entire trilogy because they offer a more rounded
inclusion of themes from the story. Without a doubt, both The
Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King offer far
more extended sequences of beauty, from the playful innocence of the
hobbit's music from early in the first score to the remarkable grace
with which the story sails away at the end of the saga. But The Two
Towers presents the height of Shore's action material for the
trilogy, with the extended Helm's Deep battle cues serving their own
brutally darker, majestic beauty in substantial cuts. From "The Last
March of the Ents" to "Theoden Rides Forth" and beyond, Shore provides
some of the most relentlessly driving and satisfying action music ever,
and it is in this pulse-pounding emphasis that The Two Towers
carries itself with pride in the trilogy. Thematically, there are only a
few snippets of ideas contained in the other two scores that are not
heard here (such as the Nature theme, for instance). The introduction of
the theme for Rohan, as well as the extended treatment of Gollum's
representation, are the meat of the new material in The Two
Towers. Ideas heard in The Fellowship of the Ring are
typically fragmented in this score, though each major idea does receive
some sort of major statement. The Gondor theme (the identity of The
Return of the King) is once again foreshadowed here, highlighted by
a short, triumphant, cymbal-crashing performance in "Sons of the
Steward." Still no hint of Grey Havens is evident in The Two
Towers, however.
It remains clear that Shore never intended to utilize the "song"
themes outside of the films for which they were written. Enya's "May it
Be" doesn't return, nor is "Gollum's Song" clearly defined in The
Return of the King. The lack of continuity for Gollum is perhaps the
trilogy's biggest musical weakness, for Shore's combination of motifs
for the character in The Two Towers is so captivating. The song
performed at the end of the film is a lyrical variation on two
underlying motifs used by Shore throughout the trilogy to represent the
creature, and only because of Shore's apparent resistance to
cross-populating the scores with their song material does "Gollum's
Song," arguably fitting the "haunting" descriptor better than anything
else, seem somewhat neglected given the character's ever-increasing role
in the story. Nevertheless, the complete set offers several
opportunities to hear Shore adapt his existing themes into strikingly
enjoyable variants, and as before, some of these newly pressed cues are
impressive. Many of these cues had pieces represented by the commercial
album, though an impressive snare and brass romp like "The Breach of the
Deeping Wall" is substantially new to the ears. Most intriguing about
the complete presentation is the extent to which the rearrangement of
the film's final 30 minutes of score was executed on the single-CD
album. The numerous lengthy crescendos in those final four or five
tracks on the original CD, even including the final two cues (spanning
the hobbit's final conversation and the end credits), often exist in
extended formats when returned to their original recordings. This return
to form is a pleasant surprise, especially in the case of some of the
more harmoniously resounding battle preparation cues, including
trumpet-laden "Where is the Horse and the Rider?" Overall, The Two
Towers is still a score that you'll likely want to edit down onto
your own compilation (depending on how much enjoy the anvil-pounding Orc
material and how attached you are to rumbling underscore cues like "War
is Upon Us," which have little impact). But at least you now have the
complete palette from which to choose your own favorite material, and
given each cue's original, expanded format, the lead-ins and such will
be much easier for you to manage.
As with The Fellowship of the Ring, the structure of the
complete set for The Two Towers has few flaws. Spread over three
CDs, the chronological presentation is a welcomed move, though you still
have to forgive the lack of conclusive resolutions to the first two CDs
(the arrangement was meant to spread the music equally in length between
each CD). A frequent listener of the single CDs will still take some
time getting accustomed to the rearrangement of the material back into
original order. Once again, an all-new set of track names might make
finding your favorite snippets of music difficult, especially if you're
not significantly knowledgeable about the specific names and places of
the storyline. The vocal performances in The Fellowship of the
Ring were a subject of some dissatisfaction for Shore, and were
remixed for the collector's set (along with a few prominent instrumental
solos). The exact extent to which this same remixing process was
accomplished for The Two Towers is not as clear (perhaps it
wasn't as important a selling point to advertise), but in general, the
massive choral performances have been set a bit further back in the mix,
allowing the orchestra a more clearly defined role. Because of the
relative lack of quietly lyrical passages in The Two Towers,
there aren't any solo performances that will strike you as much as the
resounding woodwind solos in the first cues of The Fellowship of the
Ring. Another interesting difference between The Fellowship of
the Ring and the two scores that followed is the amount of non-Shore
material, or lack thereof. The first score featured pieces written by
Enya and Nicky Ryan, or even the actors themselves, and while vocal
performances by the actors are still included in The Two Towers,
they are as contributions to an ensemble and are renditions of material
written by Shore himself. There is no cue like the obnoxious "Flaming
Red Hair" hobbit party music in the first film to break up the listening
experience in The Two Towers. Shore's role was solidified after
the first score's grand success, and purists will likely be pleased by
consistency with which the score stays true to the composer's own
established sound for the trilogy.
Aside from the 180+ minutes of music available on the three regular
audio CDs, the set comes with a DVD that features four different tracks
of the same complete score. Your DVD player or the software on your
computer, and their ability to function with the copy protection of the
DVD, will determine which of the four tracks you can enjoy. From a
technical standpoint, the four tracks are divided into two DVD-audio and
two Dolby Digital presentations. The Dolby Digital options include a 2.0 encoding at 224 Kbps,
offering a decent surround experience, and the 5.1 encoding at 448 Kbps, which will be a vast
improvement for the majority of basic surround sound listeners. Audiophiles, however, will go
straight to the DVD-audio options, which include "Advanced Resolution Stereo Sound" and
"Advanced Resolution Surround Sound," both of which feature 48 kHz, 24-bit encoding. This
sampling rate may not seem much better than that of the regular CDs, but the 8-bit increase to
24-bit overall will provide a noticeable difference for non-Dolby listeners. The "Advanced
Resolution Surround Sound" DVD-audio presentation is the glorious triumph of the set. On a
side note: we'll have to see how the set for The Return of the King fares with these 4
tracks, given that it won't physically fit onto one DVD if the same formats are offered. If
you have the six-speaker setup and playing capability to truly take advantage of the Dolby
Digital 5.1 or DVD-audio tracks on these DVDs, then beware of their consequences! Once you
hear Shore's score in this full surround sound (essentially not much different from
its clarity and scope in the film itself), it'll take you a while to get
used to hearing the plain old 16-bit stereo recordings on the regular
CDs. Many of the borderline problematic mixing issues on the stereo CDs
are solved by the 5.1 spread, and combined with an outstanding source
recording, the listening experience on the DVD is simply mind-blowing.
The aforementioned "The Breach of the Deeping Wall," for instance, with
it's blazing snare rhythm and menacing brass layers, will knock you off
your feet. The full-fledged orchestral force of the conclusion to
"Theoden Rides Forth" will, like the slamming music of the Orcs from
before, appropriately terrify your neighbors. With the success of the
last set, and the equally impressive presentation of this one, we can
continue to hope that the entire industry is headed in this
technological direction, despite the expensive consequence of forcing us
to rotate out our old collections for 5.1+ surround editions.
Many fans have complained about the DVDs in these sets, however,
despite their spectacular presentation for those properly equipped. Some
of these complaints are legitimate and some aren't. People who attack
these sets simply because of the ill-fated rubber knob that keeps the
DVD in place --a flaw that persists on the set for The Two
Towers-- need some perspective. And those who claim that that the
DVD unfairly pushed the price of the set to its supposedly
"unreasonable" $60+ are likely lacking the capability to readily play
and enjoy it. Simply put, if they heard the 5.1 mix on the DVD and could
listen to it all day long, the DVD would be the first reason to buy the
set. One very valid complaint has been made about the DVDs, however, and
that is the restrictive prohibition of certain features on the product.
As was the problem with the The Fellowship of the Ring DVD audio
presentation, scanning within a track is not allowed. Unless this
prohibition relates to the copy-protection features (and even there,
it's questionable), there's no good reason for the restriction. Unlike
The Fellowship of the Ring, however, The Two Towers has
shorter, more numerous tracks, leaving fewer moments of soft choral
beauty hidden after several minutes of clanging Orc music. Some computer
players --a tricky prospect for any DVD like this-- will allow you to
override the prohibitive limits put on the DVD (such things were
invented mostly to allow people to skip past advertisements at the start
of movies and go straight to the film or menu), but be aware that some
of these programs cause the 5.1 sound to stutter-step, negating the
gain. Also, while the work that Doug Adams does for the 45-page booklet
is astounding in its depth and knowledge, the content will likely fly a
few levels over the heads of most regular collectors. By continuing to
tackle the score by theme and character-type, Adams never provides a
basic track-by-track analysis that could considerably assist the average
listener in placing his connections into each context. You also have to
be very familiar with the films to understand the location
references.
Still, Doug Adams' work on collecting and presenting all of this
information makes for at least an interesting read, even if it doesn't
always connect in memory or terminology. His efforts to combine all of
this information for an eventual book on Shore's trilogy of scores shows
not only the complexity of Shore's creations for the films (and some
could poke a little good-hearted fun at Adams himself for his devotion
to this study), but also the continued demand for the scores themselves.
As with The Fellowship of the Ring, the set release of The Two
Towers raises the same philosophical questions for collectors to
ponder. After the original album releases catered to mass hysteria with
nonsensical trading cards, it seems that we've swung all the way in the
opposite direction with the DVD sound and sensational technical detail
of notes. It does make a person wonder if there isn't a happy medium
ground someplace, and it also begs questions about when you can actually
have too much of a good thing. Since this complete set caters to demand
and hype of the trilogy's followers, you really can't fault Adams or
anyone else for yielding to the temptation of producing the most
technically perfect and thorough soundtrack product in history. But if
you never bought into the hype in the first place, then will the
complete scores for The Fellowship of the Ring or The Two
Towers be worth the cost for you? And if you were to purchase just
one of them, then which would it be? That's hard to say. For some, the
elusive missing cues will be the attraction. For others, the DVD's 5.1
Dolby Digital or DVD-audio sound will be key. But for many others, the "best of"
albums that were released from 2001-2003, with their basic 16-bit stereo
sound, will touch on all the basics and provide enough highlights to
suffice. In terms of the extent of improvement over the original albums,
the complete set of The Fellowship of the Ring remains a more
vital upgrade to its material than The Two Towers. Only you can
make the determination about just how much of a fan of the trilogy you
are (or how much of an audiophile you tend to be), for the answers to
those questions will be the factor that separates you from your $50 (or
more) per set. A word of warning to consider: the retail price tag of
the The Two Towers set is at least $10 more than the set for
The Fellowship of the Ring. Regardless of your own decision about
their value, these sets are each spectacular in and of themselves, and
with the forthcoming set of The Return of the King in production
for next year, it's easy to suspect that true fans of the trilogy will
be forking out $175 overall in the end.
Complete Score on CD: *****
Complete Score on DVD: ****
Overall: *****
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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Track Listings (2002/2003 Regular Releases):
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Total Time: 72:46
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• 1. Foundations of Stone (3:51)
• 2. The Taming of Smeagol (2:48)
• 3. The Riders of Rohan (4:05)
• 4. The Passage of the Marshes (2:46)
• 5. The Uruk-hai (2:58)
• 6. The King of the Golden Hall (3:49)
• 7. The Black Gate is Closed (3:17)
• 8. Evenstar - performed by Isabel Bayrakdarian (3:15)
• 9. The White Rider (2:28)
• 10. Treebeard (2:43)
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• 11. The Leave Taking (3:41)
• 12. Helm's Deep (3:53)
• 13. The Forbidden Pool (5:27)
• 14. Breath of Life - performed by Sheila Chandra (5:07)
• 15. The Hornburg (4:36)
• 16. Forth Earlingas - performed by Ben Del Maestro (3:15)
• 17. Isengard Unleashed - performed by Elizabeth Fraser & Ben Del Maestro (5:01)
• 18. Samwise the Brave (3:46)
• 19. Gollum's Song - performed by Emiliana Torrini (5:51)
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Track Listings (2002 Limited Edition Releases):
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Total Time: 76:25
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• 1. Foundations of Stone (3:51)
• 2. The Taming of Smeagol (2:48)
• 3. The Riders of Rohan (4:05)
• 4. The Passage of the Marshes (2:46)
• 5. The Uruk-hai (2:58)
• 6. The King of the Golden Hall (3:49)
• 7. The Black Gate is Closed (3:17)
• 8. Evenstar - performed by Isabel Bayrakdarian (3:15)
• 9. The White Rider (2:28)
• 10. Treebeard (2:43)
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• 11. The Leave Taking (3:41)
• 12. Helm's Deep (3:53)
• 13. The Forbidden Pool (5:27)
• 14. Breath of Life - performed by Sheila Chandra (5:07)
• 15. The Hornburg (4:36)
• 16. Forth Earlingas - performed by Ben Del Maestro (3:15)
• 17. Isengard Unleashed - performed by Elizabeth Fraser & Ben Del Maestro (5:01)
• 18. Samwise the Brave (3:46)
• 19. Gollum's Song - performed by Emiliana Torrini (5:51)
• 20. Farewell to Lorien (Bonus Track) - performed by Hilary Summers (4:39)
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Track Listings (2006 Complete Set):
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Total Time: 188:12
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CD1: (63:01)
• 1. Glamdring (3:50)
• 2. Elven Rope (2:19)
• 3. Lost in Emym Muil (4:14)
• 4. My Precious (2:56)
• 5. Uglik's Warriors (1:41)
• 6. The Three Hunters (6:12)
• 7. The Banishment of Eomer (3:54)
• 8. Night Camp (2:50)
• 9. The Plains of Rohan (4:14)
• 10. Fangorn (5:13)
• 11. The Dead Marshes (5:07)
• 12. "Wraiths on Wings" (2:07)
• 13. Gandalf the White (6:47)
• 14. The Dream of Trees (1:54)
• 15. The Heir of Numenor (6:50)
• 16. Ent-draught (2:53)
CD2: (63:59)
• 1. Edoras (4:34)
• 2. The Court of Meduseld (3:10)
• 3. Theoden King (6:12)
featuring 'The Funeral of Theodred' - performed by Miranda Otto
• 4. The King's Decision (2:07)
• 5. Exodus of Edoras (5:42)
• 6. The Forests of Ithilien (6:37)
• 7. One of the Dunedain (7:13)
featuring 'Evenstar' - performed by Isabel Bayrakdarian
• 8. The Wolves of Isengard (4:22)
• 9. Refuge at Helm's Deep (3:59)
• 10. The Voice of Saruman (1:11)
• 11. Arwen's Fate (3:58)
featuring 'The Grace of the Valar' - performed by Sheila Chandra
• 12. The Story Foretold (3:58)
• 13. Sons of the Steward (6:02)
• 14. Rock and Pool (2:54)
• 15. Faramir's Good Council (2:20)
CD3: (61:12)
• 1. Aragorn's Return (2:11)
• 2. War is Upon Us (3:35)
• 3. "Where is the Horse and the Rider?" (6:15)
• 4. The Host of the Eldar (2:50)
• 5. The Battle of the Hornburg (2:52)
• 6. The Breach of the Deeping Wall (3:03)
• 7. The Entmoot Decides (2:06)
• 8. Retreat (4:40)
featuring 'Haldir's Lament' - performed by Elizabeth Fraser
• 9. Master Peregrin's Plan (2:31)
• 10. The Last March of the Ents (2:31)
featuring Ben Del Maestro
• 11. The Nazgul Attack (2:45)
• 12. Theoden Rides Forth (5:47)
featuring Ben Del Maestro
• 13. The Tales That Really Matter (12:01)
• 14. "Long Ways to Go Yet" (8:05)
featuring 'Gollum's Song' - performed by Emiliana Torrini
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The original 2002 (regular) album's insert includes notes from director Peter
Jackson and album co-producer Paul Broucek. Also featured are lyrics from each
of the ensemble vocal segments from the score, as well as the Gollum song. Once
again, a whopping two full pages of credits add to the clutter and no track
times are provided on the packaging, adding even this fine point to the
expansive woes of the original album.
Various useless goodies add to the cost of the 2002 limited album. The 2003 set includes general notes about
the trilogy. The 2006 complete set features a 45-page booklet with extraordinary notation
about the music by Film Score Monthly regular Doug Adams. That final set includes extensive
packaging extras, with the three regular audio CDs existing in a smaller case that can be
stored separately from the massive book-like exterior.
A detailed, track-by-track analysis (a supplement to the notes on the complete 2006 set) is reportedly to be
available in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format for download from Warner Brothers' web site, however a November, 2006 check of the
advertised URL reported a "404 Error: Not Found." This additional material, like in the previous score's set,
was not included in the product itself because of cost restrictions due to the booklet size. Even once the file
location is corrected by Warner/Reprise, there is no guarantee that this file will continue to
exist at that location, so dedicated fans should download it at their earliest convenience.
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