‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’: Bear McCreary reveals he composed 9 hours of music in 8 months for prequel series
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: There’s a lot of thrill and excitement amongst fans. The most-awaited, ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ is set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video on September 2 but eager fans will get a chance to watch the first two episodes on the big screen days before. Amazon teamed up with Cinemark to screen the debut episodes on August 31 for one night only. The prequel saga which is set in middle-earth's second age will be thousands of years before the late novelist Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Hobbit’ films.
In an interview with Variety, music composer Bear McCreary addressed how he composed nine hours of music in just 8 months. McCreary composed the music for the prequel working long hours with just five days off during that time. Elaborating on his experience of creating music for prequel saga, he said, “It just does not sound like a television movie. It is the most ambitious thing that I’ve ever been attached to. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to be able to pour myself into something so profoundly, and be given the space and the creative freedom to do the score I want to hear.”
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The music for each of the eight episodes was recorded in London for four days. It was often done with 90-piece orchestras plus a 40-voice choir in Vienna, singing in various Tolkien-created languages alongside soloists across Europe and in Los Angeles who were playing Hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa, bagpipes, bodhrán drums, and other world-music instruments. Explaining about same, McCreary shared, “That means whether you are seeing a giant battle, an epic montage, or just two Harfoots sitting in the woods talking, you have the largest orchestra that could fit in Abbey Road or AIR studios supporting them, along with the best soloists in the world and a huge choir.”
Also spilling beans on how the choral material was carefully prepared for the prequel series, McCreary replied, “Every cue with text is either drawn from the books or crafted in close consultation with our language experts. The context of what is being said, and the language in which it is being said, matches what you are watching. There is a lot of choir. It is not an ingredient. It’s not frosting, it’s the cake.”
The texts within the music are in two Elvish languages of Sindarin and Quenya. It also includes the Dwarvish language Khuzdul, Black speech, The language of Sauron who is the creator of the rings, and Adunaic which is the language of the people of Numenor.
McCreary shared how his musical journey with the characters of middle-earth began almost thirteen months ago. The secrecy of this project was so huge that he did not speak up about it with anyone else apart from his music team that he was doing it. Shedding light on the same, McCreary said, “I’m trying to honor the legacy of what Howard Shore created, and to do so by using those epic colors, and crafting 15 new themes that can be added to the pantheon of memorable melodies that started with Shore’s films.”
Confessing his liking for the lore of late author JRR Tolkien, McCreary said, “I’m a huge fan of the JRR Tolkien books, of the legendarium, the mythology, and the Peter Jackson films. They were, in a way, at the nexus of my childhood and adulthood, the last films that took me away as a child. I watched those films over and over and over.”
Talking about the musical album for the series, it also includes two performances by “The Rings of Power” actors: Sophia Nomvete (Princess Disa) on the track “A Plea to the Rocks,” and Megan Richards (Poppy Proudfellow) on “This Wandering Day.”
The album track listing is below, which hints at details in the series:
1. “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Main Title” (by Howard Shore)
2. “Galadriel”
3. “Khazad-dûm”
4. “Nori Brandyfoot”
5. “The Stranger”
6. “Númenor”
7. “Sauron”
8. “Valinor”
9. “In the Beginning”
10. “Elrond Half-Elven”
11. “Durin IV”
12. “Harfoot Life”
13. “Bronwyn and Arondir”
14. “Halbrand”
15. “The Boat”
16. “Sundering Seas”
17. “Nobody Goes Off Trail”
18. “Elendil and Isildur”
19. “White Leaves"
20. “The Secrets of the Mountain”
21. “Nolwa Mahtar”
22. “Nampat”
23. “A Plea to the Rocks” – feat Sophia Nomvete
24. “This Wandering Day” – feat Megan Richards
25. “Scherzo for Violin and Swords”
26. “Sailing into Dawn”
27. “Find the Light” – An Amazon Music Exclusive
28. “For the Southlands”
29. “Cavalry”
30. “The Promised King” – An Amazon Music Exclusive
31. “Water and Flame”
32. “In the Mines”
33. “The Veil of Smoke”
34. “The Mystics”
35. “Perilous Whisperings”
36. “The Broken Line”
37. “Wise One”
38. “True Creation Requires Sacrifice”
39. “Where the Shadows Lie” – Instrumental
