Howard ShoreYou have probably read the book, possibly seen the movie but it's unlikely that you have listened to the soundtrack. As you would expect there is a lot of incidental music which makes for nice background fodder and has little meaning without the images to back it up. The appearance of Neil Finn brightens the soundscape even though it does seem like a last minute addition.
Following up the huge success of The Lord Of The Rings with The Hobbit was always going to be a hard creative task for movie mogul Peter Jackson. Employing composer Howard Shore was an obvious choice for Jackson as he did a masterful job on The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. The Hobbit has more of a child-like element to it and Shore goes for a more simplistic approach to the thematic tunes. Misty Mountains has a dwarf-like deep movement capturing the mood of the film in a dramatic way. Much of the score is based around the repetition of signatures from the Misty Mountains theme.
When I think of classic Tolkien images I'm brought back to the music of Led Zeppelin, who were obvious fans of the Tolkien imagery. Together with their English musical sensibility they – in a sense – recorded music closer to the heart of the book. Neil Finn's recognisable song is epic and suitably imaginative yet it does jar against Shore's dramatic string lines filling the soundtrack.
Overall The Hobbit is a lighter movement than the previous trilogy. Once the next episodes are released this soundtrack will probably make even more sense.
