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Howard Shore makes his final foray into Middle Earth. John Suchet's Album of the Week, 15 December 2014.
Starting where the second Hobbit film left off, Howard Shore's monumental score for the third and final instalment of Peter Jackson's epic Middle Earth saga continues in similar vein as the previous episodes.
Themes from the earlier movies re-emerge and are re-cast in different forms, some of them expanded to a more epic scale to suit the adventure.
Exclusive: Howard Shore on his last Hobbit movie: 'It's hard to leave Middle Earth' >
Howard Shore is an undoubted master of his craft and after 17 years resident in Middle Earth, he sounds more than at home among the hobbits, elves and dwarves. This album is dominated by the battle music which is necessarily missing the ethereal and haunting qualities of Shore's best music.
There's little that's surprising or new about this final instalment, but it's inspiring to revisit the themes and there's much to please the fans. At the end, the Hobbit, Shire and Ring themes all merge together to give a foretaste of what's to come in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is chronologically set after The Hobbit.Download from Amazon