The original soundtrack to the Amazon Prime Video television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power featured musical score composed by Bear McCreary and themes by Howard Shore.
Howard Shore, the composer for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, was reported to be in discussions with Amazon about working on the series in September 2020. He was said to be interested in developing musical themes but not necessarily composing the entire score.[1] Shore was confirmed to be in talks for the series a year later,[2] when composer Bear McCreary was reported to be involved as well.[1] Their hiring was officially announced in July 2022, with McCreary composing the score and Shore writing the main title theme.[3] McCreary said the main theme was created independently of the score, but he felt the two "fit together so beautifully".[4]
McCreary began working on the series in July 2021, and said it was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to work on such an ambitious score with the creative freedom that he wanted. He spent two months writing new musical themes based on the scripts, which he compared to writing a symphony, and then used those to compose nine hours of music for the first season over eight months. He wanted to honor Shore's musical legacy and hoped to create a "continuity of concept" between the series and films, with the 15 new themes he wrote for the season being added to the "pantheon of memorable melodies" that Shore had written. He did note that his music would reflect the series' depiction of "these societies at their peak" compared to Shore's music for the Third Age which had "a wistfulness and a melancholy".[5] McCreary used different approaches for the different groups in the series: the music for the Elves features "etheral voices" and choir, the Dwarven music has "deep male vocals", the Harfoot's have music based in natural sounds, and the harmonic language for Númenor has Middle Eastern influences.[6]
The score for each episode took four days to record, using up to 90-piece orchestras at Abbey Road Studios and AIR Studios in London as well as a 40-person choir at Synchron Stage in Vienna. For the choral music, McCreary pulled text from Tolkien's writings and worked with the series' language experts to write new lyrics in Tolkien's fictional languages, including the Elvish languages Sindarin and Quenya, the Dwarvish language Khuzdûl, Black Speech, and the Númenorean language Adûnaic. Soloists were recorded in Los Angeles and across Europe playing folk instruments such as the hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa, bagpipes, and bodhrán drums. McCreary was still writing music for the first season in Los Angeles while recording for most of the episodes took place, but he was able to conduct the orchestra for the final episode at AIR Studios in April 2022.[5]
Two singles from McCreary's score, "Galadriel" and "Sauron", were released on Amazon Music on July 21.[3] They were followed by a full soundtrack album featuring Shore's main theme and selections from McCreary's score. The album was released on all major streaming services on August 19, and will be physically released by Mondo on CD (October 14) and vinyl (January 13, 2023). The Amazon Music version of the album includes two exclusive tracks.[7] Additional soundtrack albums featuring the full score for each episode will be released after the episode premieres.[8] All music composed by Bear McCreary, except where noted:[5][7]
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
1. | "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Main Title" (composed by Howard Shore) | 1:34 |
2. | "Galadriel" | 3:44 |
3. | "Khazad-dûm" | 3:21 |
4. | "Nori Brandyfoot" | 2:50 |
5. | "The Stranger" | 5:04 |
6. | "Númenor" | 4:32 |
7. | "Sauron" | 2:46 |
8. | "Valinor" | 2:40 |
9. | "In the Beginning" | 7:50 |
10. | "Elrond Half-elven" | 3:24 |
11. | "Durin IV" | 3:05 |
12. | "Harfoot Life" | 2:22 |
13. | "Bronwyn and Arondir" | 2:48 |
14. | "Halbrand" | 2:56 |
15. | "The Boat" | 4:09 |
16. | "Sundering Seas" | 2:42 |
17. | "Nobody Goes Off Trail" | 4:26 |
18. | "Elendil and Isildur" | 4:17 |
19. | "White Leaves" | 4:43 |
20. | "The Secrets of the Mountain" | 3:50 |
21. | "Nolwa Mahtar" | 2:03 |
22. | "Nampat" | 2:35 |
23. | "A Plea to the Rocks" (featuring Sophia Nomvete) | 3:48 |
24. | "This Wandering Day" (featuring Megan Richards) | 2:11 |
25. | "Scherzo for Violin and Swords" | 1:53 |
26. | "Sailing into the Dawn" | 4:19 |
27. | "Find the Light" (Amazon Music exclusive) | |
28. | "For the Southlands" | 4:33 |
29. | "Cavalry" | 4:07 |
30. | "The Promised King" (Amazon Music exclusive) | |
31. | "Water and Flame" | 3:30 |
32. | "In the Mines" | 8:15 |
33. | "The Veil of Smoke" | 5:00 |
34. | "The Mystics" | 7:55 |
35. | "Perilous Whisperings" | 2:42 |
36. | "The Broken Line" | 5:56 |
37. | "Wise One" | 8:45 |
38. | "True Creation Requires Sacrifice" | 5:52 |
39. | "Where the Shadows Lie" | 3:05 |
References
- ^ a b "Howard Shore and Bear McCreary to soundtrack LOTR on Prime series". TheOneRing.net. September 19, 2021. Archived from the original on September 21, 2021. Retrieved July 28, 2022.
- ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (September 19, 2021). "Oscar-Winning 'The Lord Of The Rings' Howard Shore In Talks To Compose Music For Amazon Studios' Middle Earth-Set TV Series". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on September 20, 2021. Retrieved September 19, 2021.
- ^ a b Reilly, Nick (July 21, 2022). "Bear McCreary confirmed as composer of 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power'". Rolling Stone UK. Archived from the original on July 21, 2022. Retrieved July 28, 2022.
- ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (July 21, 2022). "Howard Shore Returns & Bear McCreary Scores Amazon's 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power'". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on July 21, 2022. Retrieved July 28, 2022.
- ^ a b c Burlingame, Jon (August 19, 2022). "Bear McCreary Talks Scoring 'Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' as Soundtrack Releases Worldwide". Variety. Archived from the original on August 19, 2022. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
- ^ Motamayor, Rafael (August 19, 2022). "The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Soundtrack Is Now Available To Stream". /Film. Archived from the original on August 19, 2022. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
- ^ a b "'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Soundtrack Album Details". Film Music Reporter. August 18, 2022. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 20, 2022.
- ^ "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season One Soundtrack Available Now!". TheOneRing.net. August 19, 2022. Archived from the original on August 20, 2022. Retrieved August 20, 2022.