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Bear McCreary had the (almost) impossible task, to follow up on the monumental achievement that Howard Shore accomplished, not only in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but on The Hobbit as well. Shore created a complex musical tapestry, with dozens of themes, a musical lenguage for each culture and an insane amount of detail, and I think it's one of the greatest scores of all time. And then this prequel series came and the scoring duties went to prolific composer Bear McCreary, with a Main Title by Shore himself.
I won't really analyze the Main Titles that much, because even if they're great on their own, they don't have any thematic relation to the rest of the score (and it doesn't even appear on the first episode), so I prefer to focus on McCreary's extensive work
I wrote that first paragraph not to disrespect McCreary's work, but to put it in perspective, and to acknowledge what came before, so we can appreciate his work on its own, without the need to compare it negatively to Shore's work, which seems quite unfair. McCreary has already showed many, many times his abilities as a melodic composer, and a great one at that. And here, he delivers with a fantastic score, full of themes, distinct soundscapes for each of the cultures, and strong orchestral passages of inmense beauty, epicness and magic.
By the way, Bear is releasing weekly albums with complete score for each episode, so I definitely recommend to give it a listen while you read this, so you can better understand the narrative and the thematic development I analyze. And in case you need it, I'm working on a spreadsheet comparing the tracks on the complete releases to the tracks already released in the first soundtrack album.
SHORT DISCLAIMER: The transcriptions are not always in the same key as the pieces I put as example, and sometimes they are simplified to make it clearer and more concise
We start with "Prologue" and "Forodwaith" (which in the soundtrack are joined together to form "In the Beginning"), two cues which underscore the epic introduction to the series, where Galadriel narrates her youth, and the tale of how evil came to rise, which forced the elves to abandon the safety of their home at Valinor, and cross the Sundering Seas to the Middle-Earth, to fight against this evil. This prologue introduces three of the main themes, and the very first thing we hear at the start of the show is the Valinor theme, which gets repeated a couple of times, first in choir and then in strings, before it leads into the introduction of what is probably the most important theme of the whole show Galadriel's theme (listen to some prominent statements of the theme at 1:09, 3:15, 4:42 or 5:47 of "Prologue", at 0:05 or at 6:54 of "Forodwaith").
The Valinor theme is a peaceful, soothing and heavenly melody that represents the original home of the elves, its beauty and its people.
Galadriel's theme is heroic and noble, with hints of a tragic story lying within, representing the warrior but also human (well, elf) side of her that is shown in the series.
Galadriel's brother dies in battle, and she makes it her quest to find the evil that brought this tragedy upon her, and to put an end to it. Galadriel's theme recieves extended development during these sequences, and faces off againts Sauron's theme, and its underlying ostinato. Both ideas do battle against different variations of Galadriel's theme, representing her desire for revenge, with Sauron's ostinato playing in counterpoint to her theme, reinforcing the idea that the evil is slowly growing inside her, consuming her, as she has seen and experienced so much darkness and sorrow. These themes clearly establish themselves as the main conflicting ideas for good and evil, not only for this episode, but probably for the entire series. The Sauron Ostinato repeats quite a bit through the entire episode, sometimes joining with other themes, sometimes by itself, representing the growing, unseen evil underneath the apparent tranquility of the Middle-Earth and its people.
These are the main themes introduced in the first 18 minutes of the episode, but there are a lot more. In fact, the episode introduces most of the themes (10 of them) that will be of importance in upcoming episodes. Next in line is the musical soundscape for the Harfoots, in "Beyond Our Wandering". These nomad people are apparently unaware of all the trouble surrounding the dark forces that lurk in Middle-Earth, and McCreary supports that with peaceful, rustic music and rhytms, clearly derived from celtic influences (similar to what Shore did for the Hobbits and the Shire), very much in the vein of his own music for the Starz show, Outlander (which I highly recommend).
First, we have a theme for the Harfoot culture, a sort of folksy dance melody, which becomes quite interesting in how it uses its underlying rythm. McCreary uses a compound meter of 5/8 and then 6/8. This basically means that the rythm in each measure is different, so it's a bit hard to keep track of the rythm, representing how this people are always on the move, not quite established anywhere in particular (you can listen to it at 1:32 or 6:15 of "Beyond Our Wandering").
In a similar fashion, McCreary introduces a theme for Nori Brandyfoot, as we meet the main character of the Harfoot storyline. It's a soft, gentle theme, which uses similar instrumentations and rythms, but also has a lot of heart to it, playing in some heartfelt variations through that track, most of the times played on whistle or strings. You can listen to it at 2:56, 3:38 or 5:18 of "Beyond Our Wandering". In the track "Strange Skies", the Harfoot Life Theme appears briefly, and is followed then by another statement of Nori's Theme at 1:49 to close the theme's appearances in this episode.
The next storyline is the most important one in this episode, and follows Elrond and Galadriel at Lindon, in the tracks "Return to Lindon" and "Gil-galad's Gift". Galadriel's theme has already been established, and has a lot of different variations in these cues (I particularly like the chilling statement of the theme at 4:53 of "Gil-galad's Gift", as she reveals to Elrond her desire for revenge). Elrond also has a gentle, ondulating theme which gets introduced and then developed quite a bit in these cues (Listen to it at the very beginning of "Return at Lindon", as well as the beginning of "Strange Skies")
Elrond's theme switches between major and minor chords to signify the different sides of his character, half human, half elf
The "Strange Skies" cue presents an idea which actually had already been introduced at the very end of the prologue (8:16 of "Forodwaith"). It's a small chord progression, which plays as master smith Celebrimbor is introduced to Elrond (1:11 of "Strange Skies") and it might not seem like it's of any importance, but the end credits hint otherwise. The credits play a track called "Where the Shadows Lie - Instrumental", which is based around these very same chords, and if you connect the dialogue that happens at Celebrimbor's introduction and read the title of the end credits piece, you can definitely find the connection, and my theory is that this theme will represent the upcoming forge of the Great Rings of Power. This is just a theory, but we'll see as the season goes on.
The scenes at Lindon make great use of ethereal choir textures and melodies, to represent the purity of the elves (Shore also did something similar in his music for Rivendell and Lothlórien). For Gil-galad's gifting ceremony, McCreary composed a gorgeous choral piece which then develops into the Valinor theme, which gets a couple of statements in this scenes as the city is mentioned.
Finally, the last storyline introduced in the episode is the one that occurs in the Southlands. Here we are introduced to Arondir the elf, and Bronywn, a human. Right away, McCreary introduces two themes that I think will be of great importance in this storyline, one for Halbrand, and one for the forbidden couple and their star-crossed love. In "The Southlands" the very first thing we hear it's the Halbrand theme, a noble theme played on a hardanger (the instrument Shore used for the themes of Rohan), which gets repeated quite a lot through that cue.
Now, I know this is the theme for Halbrand since in the album released a couple weeks ago, the suite track called Halbrand it's the one that contains this melody and develops it in full, but Halbrand himself is nowhere near to be found in this episode, so perhaps McCreary also intended this melody to be used as a sort of umbrella-theme for the realm of the Southlands and its inhabitants.
What's really interesting with Halbrand's theme it's that the second half of the melody (the picture above on the right) it's strikingly similar to what is later introduced as the Bronwyn and Arondir's Love Theme. The similarities are clearly there, and I don't really know what can this mean yet, but I'm sure there is some hidden meaning behind this that we will discover further down the road. The secret lovers theme gets introduced as the two meet by the well (at 1:37 and 6:03 of "The Southlands") played usually on winds, giving it a fragile vibe, which hints at the possible tragic fate this couple will have to face. The theme gets played in most of the scenes they share alone, having another significant appearance at 2:29 of "Strange Skies".
The final minutes of the episode are quite stunning, with the shocking revelation that the evil might still be lurking around, as Sauron's Theme emerges again at the end of "The Southlands" and closing "Strange Skies". This is followed by one of my favorite sequences so far, "The Boat and the Crater" (almost the same as the track "The Boat" from the original soundtrack).
Here McCreary lets the Valinor Theme shine in all its choral beauty, making a huge impact when the elves in the boat start singing the melody, as they approach the entrance to the city. The theme achieves enormous majesty, with traces of Galadriel's theme sprinkled throughout. As she finally makes up her mind, and decides to follow her thrist for revenge, McCreary clashes Sauron's Ostinato with powerful orchestral statements of Galadriel's theme, as she leaves behind the boat and jumps into the Sundering Seas.
This could seem like the end of the episode, but there is still a small hint of what's to come in the next episode, with the introduction of quite an important theme. As the meteor that has crashed near Nori is shown, Sauron's Ostinato plays on strings, and when it's revealed that a man is lying inside it, McCreary introduces The Stranger's Theme, an ambigous and exotic melody that will represent this character, and I'm sure will be of great importance in following episodes.
So this is it for the first episode! I thought it was a great introduction to this familiar world, and great presentation of new characters and storylines. And Bear McCreary's score delivers on the emotion and epicness the story requires, with a complex tapestry of themes that I'm sure he will develop in upcoming episodes. As soon as I can, I will do episode 2 which is already released, but until then enjoy and feel free to share it with anyone who might enjoy it!
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