“The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” in concert is coming to The Auditorium in Chicago Friday, March 13 and Saturday, March 14.
It’s fitting that the performances happen the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day – and when all the downtown falderal takes place.
It’s been 25 years since the debut of director Peter Jackson’s film version of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” – the first of his takes on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic trilogy – hit cineplexes around the world. So you may have forgotten that there’s a Celtic connection to Howard Shore’s award-winning score.
In an interview conducted via email, Shore noted that Tolkien’s story points the compass North, South, East and West to depict the different cultures of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
“The story starts in the Shire, in the West, therefore you had the Celtic instruments – the tin whistle, Celtic harp, bodhran, hammered dulcimer and the fiddle,” Shore said.
As the story progresses and introduces more cultures, the palette expands to include them. Shore said he used instruments from the East – Japanese taiko drums, Chinese cymbals, Tibetan gongs, East Indian bowed lutes, the sarangi and the dilruba. For the North he used a hardanger, a Norwegian fiddle with sympathetic strings.
For the South, Shore’s employed African instruments. Shore knew those from working on director David Cronenberg’s movie that’s sort of based on William S. Burroughs’ life when Burroughs wrote his 1959 novel “Naked Lunch” (the book from which Steely Dan took its name).
“I learned how to write for the rhaita and the ney flute and African percussion,” Shore said.
Shore said that Celtic music is very old and ancient, dating back to the period from which writing and stories that may have influenced Tolkien, like the Finnish poem “Kalevala” and other works. So compositionally, using Celtic instruments felt very natural to the time and Tolkien’s tales.
Shore also suggested that Jackson contact Enya to see if she would be interested in putting together songs for “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” That led to the creation of the Oscar-nominated song, “May It Be” and “Aniron,” with Enya and her collaborator Roma Ryan.
“In ‘Fellowship,’ you start in the Shire. It was greener and more folk-oriented, and I thought of Enya. I love her voice, and I thought she would provide a perfect sound for this beautiful folk/Celtic world,” Shore said.
As such, the original score was recorded by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Enya recorded her vocals in Dublin and Shore recorded the LPO in London.
“The Lord of the Rings” is considered one of the most complex fantasy worlds ever written, and Shore took almost four years to write the score.
“I love the book(s). I related to Tolkien’s work in terms of nature very closely,” Shore said.
Back then, he was writing in an oak forest, watching the seasons change, restoring a 19th-century house and restoring its garden.
“I noticed that as the gardens improved, the sense of balance returned, my composition got better, and the music improved as well. I related to Tolkien in the sense that green and good was worth fighting for, and it was going to be a battle to save the goodness of the Earth,” he said.
As for The Auditorium performances. “The Lord of the Rings; The Fellowship of the Ring” will be shown on a 60-foot screen accompanied by 238 musicians, including a symphony orchestra, a chorus and soloists.
The production is presented by CAMI Music, and it follows more than 15 years of performances across the globe. It last played the Chicago area eight years ago at the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park.
Shore said he works with CAMI Music to bring the concerts to audiences, selecting the orchestra, choirs, soloists, conductor and to maintain the performances at the highest level.
“The live-to-projection concerts came out of the idea of hearing the music for the film in a continuous performance,” Shore said “As you are making films you are working in small areas of the film. But the live-to-projection was a way to hear the entire score played in one piece, and it came out of working on the complete recording releases. That’s when I thought about the live-to-projection concerts.”
Shore’s “Lord of the Rings” projects continue to this day. Most recently, he’s been working with renowned organist Anna Lapwood. She created a new piece, “The Lord of the Rings Organ Symphony, transcribing the original scores for the organ, Shore said.
Lapwood will premiere the work May 1 in Atlantic City, playing the world’s largest pipe organ at the Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall.
As for why “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” still resonates today, Shore said even though it is a large, epic novel and film about war, at its heart, it’s really about saving everything that’s green and good.
“It’s the smaller relationships that resonate, like the Sam and Frodo relationship. And Frodo’s relationship with Gandalf, I thought that was really inspiring too. That’s really the heart of the story,” Shore said.
