The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Background

Amazon acquired the global television rights for J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954–55) in November 2017. The company's streaming service, Prime Video, gave a multi-season commitment to a series based on the novel and its appendices, to be produced by Amazon Studios in association with New Line Cinema and in consultation with the Tolkien Estate. J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay were set as showrunners of the series, titled The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings. It follows a large cast of characters and covers all the major events of the Second Age from Tolkien's writings: the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the island kingdom of Númenor, and the last alliance between Elves and Men.

The series was originally expected to be a continuation of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) film trilogies, but Amazon later clarified that their deal with Tolkien's estate required them to keep the series distinct from the films. Despite this, musicians Plan 9—Janet Roddick, David Donaldson, and Steve Roche—and David Long returned from the films to provide music during filming for the first season, and Howard Shore, who composed the original scores for Jackson's films, also returned. Shore was first reported to be in discussions for the series in September 2020. He was said to be interested in developing musical themes but not necessarily composing the entire score. Shore was confirmed to be in talks a year later, when composer Bear McCreary was reported to be involved as well. A long-time fan of Tolkien's writings and Jackson's films, McCreary was first approached about working on the series by executive producer Lindsey Weber, who he worked with on the films 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) and The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), in 2019. He was not hired until mid-2021 after the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the first season's production and delayed the producers' decision on who the composer would be. The hiring of Shore to write the main title theme and McCreary to compose the rest of the score was officially announced in July 2022. McCreary later confirmed that he was contractually prohibited from quoting any themes that Shore wrote for the films.

Production

Composition

Despite not being able to quote any of Shore's material from the films, McCreary wanted to stay true to Shore's approach by preserving the core sounds and styles of music for each culture that Shore had developed. In this way, he hoped to create a "continuity of concept" between Shore's music and his own, with his new themes being added to the "pantheon of memorable melodies" that Shore had written. When starting work on the series, McCreary met Shore and they discussed their approaches to writing music. McCreary felt there was an expectation, based on Shore's scores, that the music in the series be a "character in and of itself" and he wanted to match that by writing music that was less in the background than other modern scores are.

McCreary preferred to see completed footage from a project before composing music for it, but for The Rings of Power he had to begin work based only on the scripts for the first season, conversations with the showrunners, and seeing a rough version of the first two episodes. He felt this worked for the series because, as a Tolkien fan, he could compose themes based on his personal expectations. This meant he was also able to compose themes that would work across the whole series, rather than just the first season, because he already knew the major character arcs. McCreary typically composes three or four themes or leitmotifs for a project, but needed more than fifteen for the first season. He began working on the music in July 2021, starting with "an absolutely brutal six weeks" just composing the themes. He compared this to writing a symphony. McCreary next applied his themes to several key scenes from the first two episodes. He presented these to the showrunners and other executive producers before they heard the individual themes, because he wanted their first experience of the music to be in context.

Because of the delay in his hiring, McCreary had less time than he would have liked to compose the season's score. After his themes had been approved, he dedicated most of his time for the next eight months to composing the full nine-hour score for the first season. He only took five days off in that time, and eschewed the common industry practice of using other composers to write additional music. This was to ensure a consistent musical approach for the whole series. Also uncommonly, McCreary did not have spotting sessions with the showrunners after the first two episodes because they all felt that they were already on the same page. He would instead compose and mock-up the full score for each episode and send it to the showrunners, who generally had only a few specific notes for each one. McCreary said it was surreal to have that much freedom and trust on such a big series, which he called "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."

Orchestration and languages

The score is orchestrated by McCreary's long-time collaborators Edward Trybek, Henri Wilkinson, and Jonathan Beard, who are collectively known as the Tutti Music Partners. They first had months of discussions with McCreary to understand his approach, and then followed detailed notes he made while composing. The trio said orchestrating each episode was comparable to working on a feature film.

In addition to orchestra and specialist instruments, McCreary composed for choir and solo singers. The lyrics for these use words from Tolkien's constructed languages: the Elvish languages Quenya and Sindarin, the Dwarvish language Khuzdul, the dark language Black Speech, and the Númenórean language Adûnaic. McCreary said there was potential to invent new words in some of these languages based on the rules that Tolkien established, but he preferred to stick to words that Tolkien created himself. He started by referring to a dictionary of words and phrases for each language while he was composing, and then worked with Sparks & Shadows's Brian Claeys to make sure the text fit the music. Payne reviewed all of the text in the first season's score to ensure each language was being used correctly. McCreary was grateful for this considering Payne's busy schedule as showrunner. Dialect coach Leith McPhearson recorded herself pronouncing every line of text phonetically, syllable by syllable, so the choirs and soloists could learn the correct pronunciation of each word ahead of recording.

The second season features lyrics written in the same fictional languages as the first season and also uses Rhûnic, which was developed for the series by scholars using unpublished notes from Tolkien. Carl F. Hostetter, a Tolkien scholar and the head of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship, led the team responsible for translating English lyrics into Tolkien's languages. For the season, Payne wrote various poems in English which were translated into the appropriate fictional language. Claeys and Bailey Gordon ensured that the translated lyrics fit the music, and McPherson again recorded herself pronouncing each word for the singers to follow.

Recording and mixing

Because of the series' large budget, McCreary had the resources to record the score how he wanted without having to use common television cost-saving techniques such as alternating between big and small orchestras. Each episode of the first season used a 90-piece orchestra at either Abbey Road Studios or AIR Studios in London over four days, a 40-person choir and children's choir at Synchron Stage in Vienna over three or four days, and soloists on various specialty instruments in Los Angeles, New York City, Norway, and Sweden over seven days. Recording began in November 2021. McCreary supervised remotely while Gavin Greenaway, Cliff Masterson, and Anthony Weeden conducted the orchestra, and Gottfried Rabl and Bernhard Melbye Voss conducted the choirs. McCreary conducted the orchestra for the final episode at AIR Studios in April 2022, after he finished composing.

Because of limits on the number of performers allowed together during the COVID-19 pandemic, the orchestra was split into strings, woodwind and brass, and percussion for separate recording sessions. The different recordings were mixed together by Jason LaRocca to sound like they were all recorded together. By the end of 2021, the music was being added to the final sound mix for each episode. The mixing schedule was comparable to a feature film and gave time for McCreary to work with each episode's editors, sound designer Robby Stambler, and sound mixers Lindsey Alvarez and Beau Borders until they were all happy, before the showrunners' involvement in the mix. McCreary said this was a first for his career.

Soloists that played specialty instruments for the first season include Paul Jacob Cartwright on fiddle, McCreary's longtime collaborator Eric Rigler on bagpipes and Irish whistles, Bruce Carver on bodhrán drums, Olav Luksengård Mjelva on the hardanger fiddle, Erik Rydvall on nyckelharpa, McCreary's close friend Malachai Bandy on the yaylı tambur and viola da gamba, and Zac Zinger on the shakuhachi flute. William Roper created the Orcs' music with horns of war, ceremonial shells, antlers, femur flutes, and Aztec death whistles. Violinist Sandy Cameron performed solos for the track "Scherzo for Violin and Swords" and the song "Where the Shadows Lie" while Eric Byers provided cello solos. Vocal soloists included Sladja Raicevic, child soprano Laura Maier, and McCreary's wife Raya Yarbrough.

Recording for the second season began around March 2024, while McCreary was composing the seventh episode, and took two months. Orchestral recording again took place at Abbey Road Studios and AIR Studios with Masterson and Weeden returning as conductors. McCreary conducted some of the sessions for the fifth and sixth episodes in April 2024, after he finished composing, and supervised the rest of recording remotely. The Synchron Stage Choir was again recorded at Synchron Stage in Vienna, conducted by Josy Svajda and Elizabeth Houser, with several other choirs added for the season: the Trinity Boys Choir was conducted by David Swinson at Trinity School in London; the Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices, a Bulgarian women's choir, was conducted by Dora Hristova at Sofia Session Studio in Sofia; and Mieskuoro Huutajat, a screaming men's choir, was conducted by Petri Sirviö at Wolfbeat Studios in Kempele, Finland. Simon Rhodes, an experienced score mixer for feature films, created orchestral pre-mixes for the season which Sparks & Shadows's Ryan Sanchez used in the final mix. Soloists that played specialty instruments for the second season include Cartwright on fiddle, Mjelva on hardanger fiddle, Rydvall on nyckelharpa, Bandy on viola da gamba and yaylı tambur, Byers on cello, Rigler on bagpipes and whistles, Carver on bodhrán and other percussion, Peyo Peev on the Bulgarian gadulka, Andrew Synowiec on guitars, and M.B. Gordy on percussion. Vocal soloists included Yarbrough, Juno Goode, and Clydene Jackson.

Elements

Leitmotifs

Writing all of the themes or leitmotifs for the series and ensuring they were distinct and memorable required "every skill [McCreary] had ever learned" in his career. He used a unique set of specialty instruments for each theme on top of the orchestra and choir, and he chose a different starting interval so the themes would all be identifiable by their first two notes. McCreary wrote an "anthem" for each culture that the character themes could either align with or not, depending on the characterization, to "clearly express each theme's narrative intention". He composed multiple sections for each theme including introductions and developments.

"Valinor":McCreary's theme for Valinor, the Elves' "homeland" across the sea, represents Elven culture in the series. He wanted it to be the music that Elves sing as they sail into Valinor, but the scene where that happens in the first episode had already been filmed by the time he was hired. The actors were singing a song by Plan 9 that McCreary felt did not work as a theme for Valinor, and therefore the Valinor theme that he wrote for the series needed to match the mouth movements in the scene. McCreary worked with the editing team for a month to perfect this. He retained Shore's approach to the Elves of focusing on "ethereal light vocals", and tried to create a sense of longing with techniques such as a chord that is "a tritone away from the tonic [meaning it] is as far away as the chord can possibly be... it feels like it's out of reach".

"Galadriel":McCreary said the series was primarily told from Galadriel's perspective and he wanted to give her a memorable, powerful melody that could be used often. Like many of his heroic themes, Galadriel's begins with an upward motion (in this case a minor seventh interval). It then descends and rises several times to create the feeling that she is searching, representing her hunt for Sauron. Her theme has an "aggressive propulsion" related to the hunt that makes it an outlier among the music for the Elves, and McCreary designed her theme to combine easily with Sauron's because she is often thinking about him and her desire for justice.

"Elrond Half-elven":The theme that McCreary had the most difficulty writing for the first season was Elrond's. His initial theme was inspired by the authoritative character from the books and films, but the executive producers did not notice there was an Elrond theme at first and felt he "wasn't sure what to say" with it. After discussing the character with them, McCreary saw an optimistic outsider struggling with the legacy of his family and wrote a woodwind and string melody that captured his "innocence, naïveté, and optimism". The theme moves between a major key and a minor key as if it "doesn't quite know whether it's happy or sad".

Songs and diegetic music

Plan 9 and David Long wrote eight pieces of music for use on the first season's set, including diegetic music for the streets of Númenor and on-screen songs. McCreary was happy to see that the series was embracing songs, believing that they are a key part of Tolkien's writings and help show the different cultures of Middle-earth. For the second season, the writers began looking early on for more times where characters could sing, and McCreary was able to contribute to the music needed during filming because he was already involved in the production from the start.

Additional music

McCreary composed original music for the series' January 2022 title announcement video, using his "The Stranger" theme. Later that year, he performed live at San Diego Comic-Con, combing the tracks "Nolwa Mahtar", "Galadriel", "Sauron", and "The Stranger" into an overture for choir, orchestra, percussion, and solo violinist Sandy Cameron. For the series' London premiere in August, McCreary was again joined by Cameron for a performance that featured a large percussion ensemble and choir. To promote the second season at Comic-Con 2024, McCreary combined the tracks "Nampat" and "Sauron" for male choir and taiko drummers.

Release

Singles

Two singles from the first season's score were released when McCreary was announced as composer for the series. For the second season, two songs were released as singles ahead of the soundtrack album.

Albums

McCreary produced a first-season album featuring his main themes as well as highlights from each episode. He edited, re-wrote, and re-recorded most of the music to create "an emotional listening experience that captures the season's narrative arc in a symphonic format", and to remove some spoilers because the album was released before the season was. The version of "Where the Shadows Lie" featuring Fiona Apple was added to the album after all the episodes were released. McCreary also released individual albums after each episode debuted, containing "virtually every second of score" from each episode. Music for the second season was released in the same pattern, with an initial album featuring themes and selections from the full season's score followed by individual episode albums. Additional music that McCreary composed for promotional purposes is included in some of the episode albums as bonus tracks. Each of the series' albums were mastered by Patricia Sullivan at Bernie Grundman Mastering, a longtime collaborator of McCreary's.

Box sets

A limited edition box set for the first season was released on April 26, 2024, from Mondo, Amazon Music, and Sparks & Shadows. The collection includes Mondo's two CD first-season album release and eight CDs featuring the music from each episode. It also comes with a 136-page journal written by McCreary which details his episode-by-episode account and general thoughts on the creation of the season's score. A similar limited edition box set for the second season—collecting the two CD season album, eight episode CDs, and a 130-page journal by McCreary—was announced in October 2025, from Mutant and Sparks & Shadows.

Reception

Critical response

Jonathan Broxton of Movie Music UK said the time and effort it took to write a review of the first season's score was worth it, praising it as the best of McCreary's career and calling it an astonishing achievement that lived up to the high bar set by Shore with the films. Broxton discussed the various themes and techniques used by McCreary and concluded that "the conceptual design, intellectual creativity, and musical world-building in this score is something that you just don't see in modern film scoring... the fact that so many of the themes are clearly identifiable and memorable, with actual hummable melodies, is something that should be celebrated everywhere". Broxton felt it was the best score for any film or series of 2022, and in his annual Movie Music UK Awards he named it the score of the year as well as the best original score for television.

Reviewing the score for Movie Wave, James Southall said McCreary's hiring was a masterstroke and the composer had managed to write music that fit alongside Shore's without trying to imitate the latter. None of McCreary's themes gave Southall the "instant gratification" of some key Shore themes from the films, but he still found some to be memorable—a rarity for modern television, in his opinion—and particularly praised "Galadriel". Southall felt the score was a career-defining moment for McCreary. Sci-Fi Bulletin's David A. McIntee said McCreary's score was a true pastiche of Shore's style and the best of television composing, rating the first season album a superlative 11 out of 10. Sarah Shachat of IndieWire called the score a "force of nature" and highlighted McCreary's ability to convey story and character information while also "reverse engineering" sounds that would feasibly evolve into Shore's material. Kyle Kruske echoed those thoughts in an "ode to Bear McCreary's excellent score" that he wrote for MovieWeb, in which he said the score was a "worthy successor" to Shore's "musical crown".

Patrick Lyon at Collider said the score had taken him "right back to Middle-earth" and discussed how McCreary had honored Shore's approach to leitmotifs for the films. Lyon highlighted the track "Khazad-dûm" and how it was consistent with Shore's own material for the Dwarves while also representing a different era for those characters. Alice Rose Dodds of Game Rant also discussed how McCreary had honored Shore's work while creating a score that matched the needs of The Rings of Power's setting and characters. She had similar thoughts to Lyon on "Khazad-dûm" and also highlighted the approach taken for "Galadriel" compared to Shore's music for that character. Dodds concluded that "McCreary takes everything that Shore has done, and transforms it into something that works with the new context of the show... it brings hope to those who listen, that Rings of Power will burn with Tolkien's heart at its center". Writing for /Film, Jeremy Mathai said the score was a testament to the power of musical motifs which many modern films and series, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, did not take advantage of.

Commercial performance

Within two weeks of the first season album's release, Shore's main theme was streamed over 117,000 times on Spotify while the tracks "Galadriel" and "Khazad-dûm" were streamed over 100,000 times.

Accolades

The first season's score was ranked seventh on IndieWire's list of the best television scores of 2022.