The full title of this book is The Music of The Lord of The Rings Films: A Comprehensive Account of Howard Shore’s Scores With CD. It’s the subtitle that tells the real story - a comprehensive account of Howard Shore’s Scores. For film composers and students of film composition, there hasn’t been a book of this caliber and depth since Henry Mancini’s Case Study of a Film Score: The Thorn Birds. I would place the work done by Doug Adams on Howard Shore’s work, the film music equivalent of what Donald Francis Tovey did for Beethoven. The book is that rich.
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Don’t be fooled by the coffee table look and feel of the book. This is a serious work. And the story line/compositional analysis of each theme is more than you’d ever get in a film scoring class.
Alexander Publishing's home page is available here, and The Music of the Lord of the Rings is available here. If you're still on the fence about purchasing the book -- in which case I tip my hat to you, since it's rare I encounter someone who makes decisions more slowly than I do! -- this could be the right time to pull the trigger ...
