Shore Lord of the Rings

jsswadley · Post by **jsswadley** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:00 pm

Once more a piece of film music has made it into the symphonic world. My orchestra is in fact scheduled to play a "Symphony of the Lord of the Rings" by Howard Shore, a projected 120 minutes of music. Have any of you seen this score or played or heard a performance? There are four singers scheduled as well! What could this be? John (would rather be playing Act II of Siegfried) Swadley

Posaune2 · Post by **Posaune2** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:22 pm

Don't remember what the tuba part is like, but if you are playing the full Lord of the Rings Symphony, the trombone parts are like playing about 5 Bruckner Symphonies in a row, endurance wise. The "symphony" is simply all of the music in the three movies, reworked into three suites of three movements each if I remember correctly.

Eric Carlson

jsswadley · Post by **jsswadley** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:45 pm

Thanks Eric. Unfortunately that is exactly what I was afraid of. John

David Zerkel · Post by **David Zerkel** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:47 pm

I played this with Philly last summer. It is a daunting part, but pretty fun to play!

Eric is absolutley correct as far as the endurance goes. Lots of low D footballs at a fairly loud dynamic. After about 100 minutes of music, there is a sudden spasm in the extreme upper register (high A, maybe Bb) that is fairly exposed.

Ibuprofen before the concert, barley-hop therapy after the concert.

Have fun! You will rarely ever have as much to play on a program!

Tom Holtz · Post by **Tom Holtz** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:06 pm

David Zerkel wrote:I played this with Philly last summer. It is a daunting part, but pretty fun to play!

Eric is absolutley correct as far as the endurance goes. Lots of low D footballs at a fairly loud dynamic. After about 100 minutes of music, there is a sudden spasm in the extreme upper register (high A, maybe Bb) that is fairly exposed.

Ibuprofen before the concert, barley-hop therapy after the concert.

Have fun! You will rarely ever have as much to play on a program!

Spasms like that are why we hire euphoniums. Somebody bust out a band transcription. "Lots of low D footballs at a fairly loud dynamic" are why we hire tubas. Two hours of Howard Shore, a Karl King march, and out the door. That's a concert!

Chuck(G) · Post by **Chuck(G)** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 1:08 am

Tom Holtz wrote: Two hours of Howard Shore, a Karl King march, and out the door. That's a concert!

Does that include "The Naked Lunch"?

(Wonder why Shore never made a symphony out of that...)

RyanSchultz · Post by **RyanSchultz** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 3:05 am

I played it with Seattle Symphony a few years ago. You'll definitely want both tubas. The trombones and trumpets have it much worse with the never ending long notes at the end--the tuba actually lays out for a while.

Have fun.

imperialbari · Post by **imperialbari** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 9:30 am

Does the thread title imply, that there also is and offshore version titled equally?

I seem to remember a Dutch band work of the same title. I once took part of a reading of that work (as 4th horn). The theft of a theme from Romeo & Juliet by Prokofiev was an insult to all musical ears.

As is just about all music-hear-a-likes coming out of the Dutch and Swiss band-paper-mills.

Why do the great players of these countries accept the dirt put on their music stands?

I once was asked to play a solo written by an exiled UK composer polluting the Swiss band world. One reading and I thanked: Not with me!

Wrong chords, bad form. Please save my ears.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre