Rolling Stone: Composer Bear McCreary to score ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’

FrogmortonJustice65

FrogmortonJustice65

Lorien
https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/tv/n...e-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-20549/

"Bear McCreary will score the anticipated series, while Howard Shore returns to Middle-earth for the show's theme tune."

The Rolling Stone article also links to two songs that are apparently going to be in the soundtrack: Galadriel and Sauron.

I like what I hear so far. It's in the same vein as Shore without being derivative.

Galadriel music has some nice choir vocals that remind me of the departure from Lothlorien scene in Fellowship of the Ring. The music definitely hints at the more active/adventurous interpretation of the character we are getting.

Sauron music has pretty imposing male choir vocals that remind me of the soundtrack from the Moria sequences in FOTR (somebody needs to translate the lyrics [;)]). The drum beat reminds me of Shore's Isengard/Uruk-Hai themes. There are also parts of the Sauron music that hint at this version of the character being "fair" rather than entirely outwardly "foul."
 
The existence of a "Sauron" track gives me pause. If Sauron is incognito throughout season 1, when will this track play? Perhaps toward the end of the season?
 
The scores McCreary wrote for Battlestar Galactica are amongst my favourites, the television equivalent of the LotR movie scores.
 
Definitely looking forward to hearing the score in context, and I imagine I'll give the soundtrack album a listen on its own, too. :)
 
I wonder if it might (also) be used in First Age flashbacks. If we see Finrod in those, that would be a natural place to include a glimpse of Sauron, too.
 
I wish I could listen to the samples, but I'm guessing they are exclusive to Amazon music subscibers?
Click to expand...

They're both very nice and have some resemblance to PJ's movies but are distinctly their own tunes. Galadriel's in particular would lend itself nicely to long panoramic shots of beautiful scenery that transitions into determined action scenes.

Sauron's tune reminds me of the scene at Weathertop in the PJ movies.
 
It wouldn't feel out of place in any fantasy setting and felt a little generic. I did like the Galadriel track though.

We'll see the entirety of what the composer had in mind in a few months.
 
What a piece of music.

Right up there with a lot of great LotR themes.

Nothing has me more excited than this. Breathtaking.

And the title of the Sauron piece gives me hope they are not planing any fake suspense about who Sauron is but reveal him soon.
 
Absolutely Arannir..

The most beautiful thing in the piece IMO is the repeated five-note phrase that seems to put the name "Galadriel" into music form.
 
This was rumored a long time and I am so glad it turned out to be true. And it sounds great!

The announcement alone reminds me of OBI-WAN KENOBI with John Williams returning for the Main Theme and Natalie Holt (known for her work on "Loki") for the regular score. Both announcements sounded promising. I loved of course Williams and Shores works on SW and LOTR and really liked Holts and McCrearys previous scores. In the end KENOBI was a huge disappointment for me especially the music but RINGS OF POWER already has two tracks and themes I immediately like a lot!

Galadriel is a beautiful and majestic theme in the tradition of Shores works and reminded me a little of Bear McCrearys recent score for the FOUNDATION series. Really enjoyed the choir elements and melodic sound of it.

Sauron on the other hand may sound a little to "generic" and typical epic fantasy bad guy with the deep male choir, drums, horns and is obviously McCreary in his GOD OF WAR mode BUT there are several thematic snippets in this that I could see returning within the regular score to tease the return of Morgoth top lieutenant and even turn it into a more beautiful version for Saurons fair forms.

A question for the people fluent in Tolkiens languages: Did anyone got what the choirs are singing? Especially the "Sauron" part sounds very much like Black Speech to me and would make sense. McCreary usually uses "real" languages in his scores like Old Norse for his GOD OF WAR score. It's definitely not the Ringverse but I am sure I heard words like "ishi" (in), "krimp" (bind) or "burzum" (darkness) in it. Maybe an earlier version of the Ringverse?
 
The music of Kenobi was indeed borderline catastrophic. When SW doesn't even get the music right anymore, things are bad.

But I agree that RoP now has already two very fitting and promising themes I hope to see variations from over the next five years :)

Though I wouldn't use the name generic. Archetypical is what comes to my mind for the Sauron theme. Fitting, considering he is a very archetypical character.
 
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I really like "Sauron". It's a very fitting theme especially if you look at the dark cult elements we might get in later seasons on Numenor. English isn't my native language so maybe "generic" is the wrong word chosen for it. I guess the word "generic" is often associated with negativity but that's not what I wanted to say. Maybe only that it's not that unique compared to let's say Howard Shores themes for Sauron.

Dark male choir, drums, horns... it's something we've heard a lot in fantasy shows, games or films and especially by Bear McCreary. And if you don't listen to the lyrics (I guess they're Black Speech) this could've also been for something else even for the upcoming GOD OF WAR RAGNAROK game. It's very similar to what McCreary has done before. This said it's not bad at all but it's a very "safe" choice because of course it works perfectly. It sounds dark, ominous and epic. Which is great but what I like most of the "Sauron" track is the thematic potential of the smaller melodic elements in between. I guess we won't hear this deep Gregorian or Black Speech chant whenever Sauron or whatever he will be called in the show appears but maybe a much sweeter and brighter version with hints at the same melody only to turn slowly into this dark version.
 
It looks like Howard Shore will be involved after all. This show continues to try to tie itself to the PJ movies as much as possible while still trying to be its own thing. What an interesting tightrope to walk.

LINK: https://deadline.com/2022/07/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-series-howard-shore-returns-bear-mccreary-composes-score-amazon-1235073588/
 
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