Lord of the Rings Symphony

Posted at 11:33 AM on March 20, 2012 by William Johnston

Howard Shore has reworked the music from the Lord of the Rings movies into a two hour, six movement symphony. All of the musical material has been retained; however much of the material has been reworked or reorchestrated to create a standalone piece.

I wonder if someday the melodies and thematic material will be better known from the symphony than from the movies themselves — similar to how everyone seems to know Procession of the Nobles by Rimsky-Korsakov, yet few remember the opera Млада from which it came.

A narrated walkthrough of the symphony:

The complete symphony:

The Lord of the Rings Symphony Album from Arkivmusic

Incidentally, Howard Shore was not the first to compose a symphony based on the Lord of the Rings. Johan De Meij wrote his Symphony No. 1 "Lord of the Rings" between 1984 and 1988.