Sideshow/Weta premiered four new Cave Troll Maquettes yesterday at the Comic-Con 2004 in San Diego CA. Along with the new Trolls, they also made available for pre-order the much anticipated Mouth of Sauron bust! According to Sunday’s schedule, their live webcams and chat will be focused on covering LOTR items from 9am-11am PST today. We can only assume this would include glimpses at the new Gothmog on Warg and the ROTK EE Gift Set. [Click Here]
Month: July 2004
BonMothma writes from a unique position of a LOTR geek, she will be on the other side of the stage during the LOTR concert. Last week she sent along this report, The LOTR Symphony: A Different Perspective, detailing all the work involved in preperation for the very same LOTR concert that many of you have attended. This week she updates us on all the rehersals and plans for the upcoming event! [More]
BonMothma writes: More observations from the perspective of a singer in the Mendelssohn Choir as we complete week 2 of rehearsals and preparations for the “Lord of the Rings Symphony” coming to Pittsburgh next weekend.
The music that the choir is using looks like it was put together by about 6 different people. On some pages, each measure is numbered; on others, only the first measure of a line is numbered. I found this especially ironic since there was a posting earlier this week with Howard Shore’s talking about the importance of numbering each measure in a movie score. It is perhaps more important in a way for the Symphony since I’m sure the original score was recorded in sections, and the orchestra and choir didn’t have to jump to different tempos and moods without a break, as we will have to for the live performance.
The phonetic text also seems to differ from one section to the next. Some words are in the pronunciation guide; some are not. Some of the text is less phonetic and more Elvish. One page is pure Elvish as it appears in Tolkien’s text, with no explanation that this is the case. Also, they not only lumped all of the Elvish languages into one translation, they put the Dwarvish in with it, too, with no notation that it is an entirely different language. In spite of these problems, the overall pronunciations are sounding pretty good.
I’ve seen many reviews by fans saying that the singing in the “Khazad Dum” sequence is not loud enough. After looking at it more closely and hearing the men working on it this week, I can see why. “Dimholt Road” touched on this last week when he talked about Shore’s using the low male voice to convey the deepness of the Dwarf city. I imagine that when this was recorded originally, the all-male choir was much larger than the male sections of the choirs that are appearing on this tour. Also, as the notes are very low, they are hard to sing loudly. I got the feeling that these were at the bottom of the ranges of some of the bases and baritones. As a result, it will not have the power and fullness of the original soundtrack and score.
There is a genuine enthusiasm in the choir from fans and non-fans alike. Everyone wants to do their best, and there have been many comments regarding the beauty and power of the different sequences. As we were going over one part, Dr. Page commented, “I don’t know what’s happening here, but it must be very sad.” It was Smeagol’s theme as heard in “The Forbidden Pool,” which isn’t a particularly sad moment, but it certainly conveys the pathetic nature of poor, poor Smeagol.
We rehearse with Mr. Shore on Monday. Woo-hoo!
Namarie,
BonMothma
Lady of Lorien
Think you own every bit of LOTR merchadise out there? You have your Eye of Sauron belly-button ring? You have your freaky Gollum Doll? Your Figwit Minimate? Well how about this from abcdistributing.com, your very own LOTR throw! [More]
If you’re in Pittsburgh or were planning to go there for the Howard Shore LOTR concert on July 31, how about joining other Ringers for dinner beforehand? [More] Ticket sales close July 27, so be quick!
If you’re in Pittsburgh or were planning to go there for the Howard Shore LOTR concert on July 31, how about joining other Ringers for dinner beforehand? Diamond Took writes:
“On July 31, 2004, there will be an Overlithe Dinner to celebrate Howard Shore conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for “An Evening in Middle-earth”. It is featuring the recipes of my cookbook, and is a fundraiser to benefit the symphony. It’s from 4-6pm. The details are here
“The tickets are very limited and only available until July 27, 2004, but I thought that there could be people from out of town coming in that weekend for the concerts (there are three) and may also want to attend the dinner.
“The Pittsburgh Symphony goes all over the world and does a lot of free concerts and benefits for a variety of organizations all the time, and this time, we wanted to show them that Lord of the Rings fans are very grateful that they opted for the show with Howard, and that we appreciate them.”