The book is arranged in five chapters. The first establishes the importance of film music as a subject for scholarly inquiry; the second examines the music and culture of Middle-earth (anchored in the text, not the Peter Jackson film adaptations); the third discusses Howard Shore's score in more detail, focusing on several important musical motifs--"the primary themes of each culture presented in Jackson's film" (9); the fourth discusses the role of the audience, exploring the same set of musical leitmotivs as well as alterations in those themes over the course of the films; and the fifth offers conclusions and suggestions for further study. The intended audience, according to the book's blurb, is any combination of Tolkien fans, musicians and musicologists, and film enthusiasts. But I would say that the subject matter is a bit more technical than is likely to appeal to the casual fan--of either Tolkien, music, or film. The ability to read music (at least passably) is a prerequisite, as there are some fifty musical transcriptions salted through the book. Young indicates that all transcriptions were made according to his own ear because the scores were not available to him (8). But if the scores were indeed unavailable then, they have certainly become available since the original thesis. It is a shame Young didn't take the time to update his transcriptions for this book; however, the ones I examined appear to be very accurate. Moreover, they agree for the most part with others I have seen in the literature (for example, Bernanke). (1)
Lord Of The Rings Score PDF
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