Bittersweet end for LOTR composer

By MIKE HOULAHAN

While the forthcoming world premiere of The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of the King will be a cause for celebration, at least one person closely associated with the film will watch the movie with mixed feelings.

"It's bittersweet to be finishing the film," Howard Shore - the man who composed 12 hours worth of music for New Zealand director Peter Jackson's three-movie adaptation of J R R Tolkien's fantasy classic -- says.

"I had two great inspirations -- I had Tolkien and Peter Jackson. I had Tolkien's book on my desk and Peter's movie on my player, and that made me very happy.

"As a composer it's an ideal, wonderful world to write music to. It's so vast, and while the complexity at first may have seemed daunting, once you worked your way into it, it was a fantastic world to work in.

"That's why I said it was so hard to end, to not be writing music for it any more, because it's a wonderful place to live in, to breathe in."

Like the cast and crew -- who essentially had to commit at least three years of their lives to the movies -- the Canadian composer also had to devote most of his time to The Lord of the Rings.

With Shore being a man in high demand after writing the music for films such as Silence Of The Lambs, Mrs Doubtfire, Philadelphia and Single White Female, agreeing to such a big workload was a big commitment.

He frankly admits there were times when the time pressure of churning out the music for three films in three years threatened to overwhelm him -- somewhat like Frodo carrying the burden of the One Ring.

However, Jackson remained a calming influence and the two have obviously built up a strong working relationship -- Shore has already signed up to write the music for Jackson's next film, a remake of 1930s classic King Kong.

"I felt sometimes Peter was like Gandalf saying 'You can do it'," Shore says.

"There were so many days you'd say 'I can't do it, Peter. It's not possible to do this' and he'd say 'No, no, it can be done. You can do it, you're the one. You've been chosen to do this.'

"They were fantastic inspiration and great guides for me, Peter and Fran (Walsh, Jackson's partner). They were the ones that really gave you the courage and the energy to create the score."

Shore was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. While growing up the budding rock musician was aware of an older kid in his neighbourhood who was starting to develop a reputation for his home-made films.

Mutual friends introduced Shore to the older kid -- David Cronenberg -- and the pair struck up a creative partnership which has endured to this day. Shore has worked on 10 Cronenberg movies, including Dead Ringers, Crash and Naked Lunch.

"When we first met he had never worked with a composer and I had never worked with a director, but we struck up a collaboration and we grew up, in a way, making movies together," Shore says.

"We learned about movies and learned about how to work with composers and directors from each other. It's been a very fruitful relationship."

Despite the time pressures Lord of the Rings placed on Shore, he was still able to keep that relationship alive, composing the music for Cronenberg's recent film Spider. That work was a piece of chamber music -- but then almost everything would seem like a chamber work after the Lord Of The Rings score, which was written for a 100-piece orchestra and 100 singers.

Recently Shore has condensed the 12 hours of music in the Lord Of The Rings to a two-hour symphony, which the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will perform in Wellington in a special concert timed to fit in with Monday's world premiere of Return Of The King.

"I think I had to write that much music to construct this piece," Shore says.

"The symphony is constructed in such a way to tell the story, and is clearly based on the narrative and the shape of the book and the movies.

"I think it's a little unusual to have created a two-hour symphony based on a 12-hour film score played in concert with an orchestra and choirs on that scale, but it kind of led itself there. There were a few performances of the music from Fellowship ... and now, it's evolved to six movements, which is really the full piece. It's longer than a symphony, hence the six movements."

Shore regards the symphony as a lasting reward from his work on Lord Of The Rings. That work has also garnered a golden award, the Oscar he received for his score for The Fellowship Of The Ring -- an accolade he still has difficulty taking in.

"It felt unnatural," Shore says.

"You weren't thinking about those kind of rewards when doing it, you were just trying to do a good job. The first film came out and it captured people's imaginations and it won on a wave of goodwill.

"That was a sweet moment, to be standing there with the Oscar having done this work. Being rewarded in that way was gratifying, all the more because it was unexpected."

While it's his name on the Oscar, Shore says his score - like most aspects of The Lord of the Rings project - was a collaboration. While he may have actually written the notes on the page, many other people were involved in shaping his thoughts.

"I worked very closely with Peter, Fran and (screenwriter) Phillippa Boyens," Shore says.

"They invited me into the project essentially as another writer, even though I am a composer -- I'm writing music, but I'm a writer. I worked with the three of them the way a writer would work with other writers. There was a constant dialogue.

"Peter and I worked very carefully on the use of the music, how to shape the music and essentially how to use the music in the film. Why is it there? What is it doing? How big does it have to be? What is the perspective? In what character is it living and breathing?

"Those are all really important aspects of film music."

* The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has its world premiere in Wellington on December 1. Shore conducts the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's performance of his Lord of the Rings Symphony in Wellington on November 29.

- NZPA

Herald Feature: Lord of the Rings