The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies - Motion Picture Soundtrack [2 CD][Special Edition]

To paraphrase Frodo Baggins: It has been 11 years since The Return of the King, and the wound has never fully healed. When all will have been said and done about the Middle-Earth sextology, Howard Shore will be remembered as one of the few members of the creative team who has never, ever lost sight of the heart in Tolkien's stories.For Battle Of The Five Armies, the same scoring process was put into motion as on Desolation Of Smaug. Howard Shore penned his thematic ideas, had them approved by Peter Jackson, and then proceeded to put down the score onto paper in New York, which was then forwarded to Conrad Pope, who finished the full orchestrations according to Shore's sketches, and conducted the music in Wellington, New Zealand, with Peter Jackson in the booth. Sessions took place in September, with a few pick-ups in October. As with Desolation Of Smaug, the score was locked at that point, and was then editorially conformed for the final cut of the film. The result in Desolationof Smaug was a film version of the score, which was in major parts chopped apart and dialed out, hurting the pace of the movie in some scenes, which could have been avoided, had Jackson and the studio scheduled additional scoring sessions for rewrites, as it was the case with every Ring film, including An Unexpected Journey.The film result is just as chaotic this time, and you have to decide for yourself if the eradication of scoring up until the last minute, which is also what made Lord of the Rings so refined, and the channeling of Peter Jackson's demands to the conductor's podium through someone that is not Howard Shore, is hitting a problematic spot with you, since there undoubtedly are small orchestration choices in these final two Tolkien scores that are not Shore's, and I think you can definitely hear it to some extent.The flipside of the whole process is of course that the early finishing of recording sessions allows for a more straightforward album presentation, and a more accurate picture of what is actually in the film, whereas the Lord of the Rings albums (on just one disc too) featured mostly alternates, since the albums had to be locked while scoring was moving into the hottest phase.The Battle Of The Five Armies album presentation is the same as the previous two albums. Two discs, two versions, with expanded tracks for the limited edition, and an additional booklet. The movie is the shortest of all six Rings films, but it's still surprising that the album is the shortest of the three, with around 95 minutes of score (excluding bonus tracks and Boyd's song) on the special edition. The film is scored almost wall to wall, so there is a good amount, maybe 15 minutes, missing. The tone of the album is mostly very grim, dark, and brutal, and differs from the past two in this regard. There is also significantly more choral work in this score - sadly still without featured soloists, but grand nonetheless.The album opens with a real stunner, Fire And Water, scoring Smaug's attack on Lake-Town, and his demise. Also shorter on album, it is still a six minute powerhouse with a chilling choral climax, and one of the biggest highlights on the album. We get an intermezzo of reprised Tauriel and Kili music in Shores of the Long-Lake, followed by a new and utterly beautiful theme on solo string and flute for Bard's leadership, before the album shifts into martial mode, and, save for a few breaks, doesn't leave it until Courage and Wisdom.Highlights are the opening minute of Beyond Sorrow and Grief, which must be some sort of definition for "epic", the way Shore mingles his themes "House of Durin", "Erebor", and "Thorin", backed by resounding male chorus; then a militaristic incarnation of "Erebor" in The Ruins of Dale, and of course any statement of the Woodland Realm theme, which leaves its etheral self behind and shifts, much like everything in this score, into battle mode, accompanied by other recurring motifs, most notably the one playing when the dwarves are thrown into their cells in DoS. Speaking of recurring motifs, it is once again amazing to hear Shore weave his carpet of themes, as if they were always meant to culminate in this, and no other, way. You think you've heard it all every time, and every time you're proven wrong. Guardians of the Three is especially fascinating in this regard. Shore reuses the evil motif from Sauron appearing in DoS, and the Witch King appearing in Minas Morgul in Return of the King, in an eerie fashion, and turns it into a sort of "Sauron Rising" theme. Lothlorien is mingling in counterpoint with the Necromancer skip-beat, the Rivendell arpeggios are heard under a worn statement of Gandalf's theme, and the "Power of Galadriel" music from Fellowship of the Ring reappears. In this regard, BOTFA is similar to Return of the King, in that it doesn't mainly introduce new themes, but develops and mingles the established ones. One should, however, not make the mistake and expect a score in the tone and scope of Return Of The King. These scores are a build-up to LotR, they aren't meant to top them in magnitude. It doesn't mean there are no magnificent moments in the battle, or no choral highlights, but not in the style of Return of the King's grand finale(s).The Darkest Hour, The Fallen, Sons of Durin, to name some, are all absolute highlights, and will give you chills up and down your spine, but if you look for eruptions of unabashed orchestral and choral grandeur with Wagnerian magnitude, you need to listen to Return of the King, not Battle of the Five Armies. The finale of Lord of the Rings is epic and emotional. The finale of Battle of the Five Armies is brutal. That's the difference. To The Death brings harsh brass, and relentless rhythms (think of the music for Aragorn fighting Lurtz, paired with Legolas fighting Bolg, amped up times ten), before it gives us a martial, and wet-your-pants awesome, statement of Nature's theme, followed by the Eagles' music from the film version of An Unexpected Journey, and finally a tormented choral piece, with soprano, that could possibly creep you out, which ends with some massive chords.There are countless other details to mention: the goblin motif from An Unexpected Journey Returns, there is a new motif for Gundabad, a new theme for Bard's family (on gorgeous sopranos in Fire And Water), Bilbo's sneaky theme returns, and there is a new amazing theme for Dain Ironfoot, featured in the fantastic Battle for the Mountain, giving the dwarves a Celtic flavour with bagpipes, one of the few remaining colours Shore has not explored already for these films. The theme from An Unexpected Journey for the conflict between elves and dwarves also makes a poignant return. One of the most central themes of this score is still Smaug's material, which is continued in its use for Thorin's gold sickness, drawing the parallel to Smaug.The real genius in this score is the way Shore closes out the story of the Hobbit, and segues into Fellowship of the Ring in the last two score tracks. There And Back Again closes with a familiar Ring theme statement, and the Shire theme on strings, which brilliantly finishes on the first chord of the Fellowship theme, teasing it, and creating its conclusion in the finale of Fellowship of the Ring. Some may find it too subtle, I think it's brilliant. The closing song is given to us by Billy Boyd, and even though I found it somewhat boring at first, it grew on me immensely, with its touching lyrics, and finally some orchestral dignity instead of strumming street artists and Jackson's friends. The two bonus tracks are a theme presentation (Dragon Sickness), and music from the Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition, which wasn't even featured mostly, and even includes music for a cut scene, namely Gandalf looking into the Palantir.A bit curious is the drier mixing of the score, especially the percussion, compared to its predecessors, but it's nothing that will be noticed by most people.I will say that the three Hobbit albums, disregarding the chaotic film version of An Unexpected Journey, present us a fluid work that is, in terms of complexity, skill and execution, on par with Lord of the Rings. It may not be as popular as Rings, which is sadly a byproduct of the films not reaching old heights, and the fact that you cannot recreate the surprise factor, but the feat is just as impressive. Special credit must be given to Howard Shore that he didn't go the obvious road, and made this trilogy, and especially The Battle Of The Five Armies, so epic that it's on the same scale as Return of the King, but that he retained artistic integrity and treated it as what it is, namely a precursor to Lord of the Rings.Thank you, Howard, for 16 hours of incredible music that can rightfully be called the best in cinema history.

Here we are again, the completion of another Middle Earth trilogy from Peter Jackson and Howard Shore. As I reflected back on The Hobbit films and scores, I realized they didn’t leave as much of a lasting impact as The Lord Of The Rings. The thematic impact of The Hobbit scores were much less, and this is mainly due to the fact that Warner Brothers forced Jackson to make three films out of a a 320 page novel. This resulted in Shore’s score having to “…“feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” as Bilbo once said. The final product is a 3-act story being spread across 3 lengthy films instead of 3 books being adapted into three lengthy films. That doesn't mean though that Howard didn't perfectly accompany the narrative here. We indeed to have some brilliant scores, including this one. The first score was a great introduction to this journey, however the main motif of it wasn’t written by Shore. But he ran with the “Misty Mountains” motif and made it work. The second score, while strong, lacked thematic structure. It had to fill space for most of the second act narrative and pretty much “kill time” till movie #3. Now for The Battle Of The Five Armies, we truly see that Shore was saving the best for last. We finally have fully realized thematic structures, and the score becomes a tremendous experience.What you notice about this score is that it truly hits the ground running, and that’s expected since this entire film is the third act of a story that has taken us two films to get here. The added narrative filler does hurt the trilogy somewhat and story-wise makes them inferior to The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, but in no way are The Hobbit films bad films. The Battle Of The Five Armies is a whopping epic of a score. Shore weaves themes with propulsive melodies to build a sense of scope and magnitude that we haven’t heard since The Return Of The King. Rousing battles, threatening intensity, wholly organic emotions and a swelling tone of regality make the whole score an absorbing epic. Shore references some familiar themes from the LOTR trilogy that creates a nice bridge and truly makes these films feel part of Middle Earth. We wrap up the journey in a nice sentimental fashion that reminds us that Frodo’s journey is what lies ahead. Overall, The Battle Of The Five Armies does a fantastic job of providing a rousing climactic epic to this adventure embedded in a world of fantasy.Howard Shore’s music for Peter Jackson’s adaptations of the Middle Earth saga has become an iconic part of our culture. In many ways it was the Star Wars of a different generation; a truly engrossing journey filled with characters we love and a story we resonated with. Middle Earth felt like a real place because of Shore’s music, and the characters felt real because of the thematic arcs he built for them musically. The Battle Of The Five Armies is a superb final act to this long and sometimes tiring journey of Bilbo Baggins, but after 3 films we can smile contently as we have another great trilogy worth getting lost in. WaterTower Records’ fantastic special edition treatment of the score is worth snapping up immediately to complete your collection.

What can I say, it's the last one. The last journey into Middle Earth, I thoroughly enjoyed this score as I have with all of Howard Shores Middle Earth epics.While DoS remains my favourite of the three Hobbit scores this one has some excellent tracks my favourites include Shores of the Long Lake and The Gathering Clouds.The main highlight from this album though is the brilliant end credits track by Billy Boyd, an inspired choice to have perform the last track for the Middle Earth films, beautifully recorded and sang it's both a joy to listen to but has that tinge of sadness knowing that this is the final journey.

Definitely worth getting if you liked Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings score, even if, like me, you're not a big fan of the film. The score is lovely, and this version comes in a lovely case!

Although I don't think any of the LOTR/Hobbit songs can compete with Neil Finn's Song of the Lonely Mountain, Billy Boyd's second contribution to Howard Shore's Tolkien scores showcases his beautiful voice perfectly. And as with the other two Hobbit films, Shore manages to create a distinctive score with just enough echoes of the LOTR to keep the continuity and feel of Middle Earth.

Brilliant score as we have come to expect from Howard Shore. Containing musical links and refrains with shades of things to come in the continuing saga. Simply lovely to listen to and feeds the imagination. Recommended.

Brought this for my wife as she loves the films and she loves classical music , she says it’s perfect

Howard Shore delivers a wonderful score to complement the Lord of the Rings

excellent

Epic soundtrack that brings the saga to a close. Fans of the music from the other movies will love this too. Buy it and you'll love it.

Great films with a great score.

OK !

A good soundtrack to add to the series, bad design on the packaging as it is hard to get the discs out without tearing the cardboard case.

Love it. Thanks.

Enjoyable listening

I love this product

As good as described