> That's a pretty big stretch. Although there are instances of ostinato in
> LOTR, that's hardly the signature sound of those scores. It's not even a
> minor defining characteristic. LOTR is predominantly driven by
> representational (and more importantly, vastly different) melody and
> harmony - something Zimmer's score cannot claim.

> "Heavily orchestrated" is also too broad a characteristic.
> Shore's are heavily orchestrated, yes, but they utilize the full range of
> the orchestra and aren't confined to the bass region.

I am sorry for the mistunderstanding. My comparison was not to equate the scores of Zimmer and Shore in any way. I know all about Shore's Wagnerian system of motifs in Lord of the Rings, something which is only rivaled by the score of Star Wars.
My purpose of the comparison was a direct question to user Jacques. I wanted to see his taste in composers and making such a comparison would provoke an interesting reaction, as it did in your case.

For my review to your comment, I agree and disagree with you. Yes, Shore's score is completely different from Zimmer's in terms of tone. Shore's orchestral sound is obviously more colorful and not has weighty, and his harmonic language was supposed bring in mind the ancient times. But, that doesn't mean that Shore and Zimmer could not have used similiar compositional techniques, such as the use of ostinato. A majority of motifs in Lord of the Rings use ostinato whether as a accompaniment figure or as melodic material. Shore's string section is heavily orchestrated: the strings most commonly play divisi to create a dense chord. Heavily orchestrated does not mean heavy in a tonal sense: if Shore had rewritten all the violin parts for flutes and oboe, then I would still consider it to be heavily orchestrated.

So I wanted to point out that they used same compositional techniques the end result is different. Thank you for your response!