A closer look
Composers usually love to brag about their grand, uplifting orchestral swells, but Howard Shore decided to slowly rot his own music from the inside out. When writing the leitmotifs for The Lord of the Rings, he introduced the cozy, Celtic-inspired Shire theme in the first film. However, as the One Ring steadily poisons Frodo's mind, Shore subtly alters the melody in the subsequent films—stripping away its joyful instruments, changing its time signature, and flatting its notes. By the time they reach Mount Doom, the music of home has been mathematically twisted into a funeral dirge.
