Howe Records is pleased to announce the release of the Hugo – Original Score, available in stores and digitally on November 22, 2011. Hugo marks the sixth collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and composer Howard Shore. Like Scorsese’s film, Shore’s score to Hugo is a love letter both to the French culture in the 1930s and to the groundbreaking early days of cinema.

Hugo tells the story of Hugo Cabret, a boy who lives behind the walls of a Parisian train station. Shore’s music is composed for two ensembles – one nested within the other – to create a sense of layering in the musical palette. Inside a full symphony orchestra resides a smaller ensemble, a sort of nimble French dance band that includes the ondes Martenot, musette, cimbalom, tack piano, gypsy guitar, upright bass, a 1930s trap-kit, and alto saxophone. “I wanted to match the depth of the sound to the depth of the image,” says Shore.

The Hugo score is based around a family of primary musical themes. “The themes are used for clarity of storytelling and they develop over the course of the film,” says the composer. The score’s central theme is a Parisian waltz that develops into the song “Coeur Volant.” Howard Shore invited renowned French singer Zaz to collaborate with Elizabeth Cotnoir and him on the song, which captures the lyrical essence of the world of Hugo.

The theme for Hugo’s quest begins the score with clocklike precision in piano octaves. A figure for strings, celesta, and ondes Martenot rotates downward through minor modes to depict the mysterious automaton that Hugo’s father left behind. The Station Inspector is portrayed by a marche comique featuring bassoon and striding snare drum, while the cinematic innovations of Georges Méliès – “Papa Georges” to Hugo and Isabelle – receive Shore’s most theatrical flourishes, which recreate the spirited energy of live theater orchestras and the very first film scores.

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Original Music By Award-winning Composer Howard Shore
And Lang Lang’s Performance Of Wagner’s “SIEGFRIED IDYLL”

Howard Shore wrote the music for this dark and dramatic tale set in Zurich and Vienna on the eve of the First World War. A major part of the soundtrack is Howard Shore’s arrangement of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll performed by one of the most exciting pianists of our time, Lang Lang.

A Dangerous Method is the story of the relationship between two of the great pioneers of modern psychology, Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), and of Jung’s relationship with his brilliant and beautiful young patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). Jung successfully treats Sabina, who with his encouragement becomes a psychiatrist herself, and through correspondence about her case Jung gains the friendship of Freud. When Jung breaks off his love affair with Sabina, she becomes Freud’s patient, and differences on moral and intellectual issues open a gap between the two men.

Shore’s arrangement of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll features on this soundtrack. Wagner composed the Idyll as a birthday present for his wife Cosima after the birth of their son Siegfried in 1869. It is a highly personal piece of music: its first performance, by a small ensemble in Wagner’s home on Christmas Day 1870, woke Cosima on that morning from her sleep. Later Wagner incorporated music from the Idyll into his opera Siegfried, the third of the four parts of The Ring.
The interpreter of the Siegfried Idyll on this soundtrack, the pianist Lang Lang, is one of Sony Music’s most renowned artists. His meteoric career has taken him around the world for performances in front of huge audiences and even into the White House. His dazzling technique is matched by serious thought about the pieces he plays.

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The score for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy has been hailed as some of the greatest film music ever written. Sweeping in scope, it is a musical interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth—an operatic tapestry of cultures, histories, languages, and people.

The Lord of the Rings Symphony – a six-movement piece spanning Howard Shores three film scores was created from the nearly 12 hours of music composed by Shore for the film trilogy. The six movements reflect each of the six books of The Lord of the Rings.

“Maestro Ludwig Wicki personally selected the musicians who comprise The 21st Century Symphony Orchestra and who perform on this recording,” said Shore. “Over the past four years he has perfected this music in Lucerne, Switzerland. His precision and supreme musicianship is evident throughout the recording. I congratulate him on his success and thank him for his masterful approach in bringing this score to life.”

This December marks the 10th anniversary of the release of the first film and soundtrack of the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Shore continued, “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is very close to my heart. I have great respect for his writing and share the values he weaves into these stories of courage and honor, friendship and sacrifice. I love the inner aspect of his writing, the detail of the relationships, and his observance of nature.”

In tandem with the release of each of the films, single CD soundtracks of Shore’s music were released. Following the conclusion of the film series, three boxed sets containing the complete recordings from each of the films were also released. Live-to-projection symphonic concert performances have been performed in many cities worldwide and this fall 10 concerts are scheduled in the United States along the West Coast performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Chorale, Phoenix Boys Choir and soloist Kaitlyn Lusk all under the baton of Maestro Ludwig Wicki. In 2010, Carpentier and Alfred Music Publishing released The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films book, written by Doug Adams.

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Purchase: Amazon, iTunes, or your preferred retailer.

Purchase: Amazon, iTunes, B&N, J&R Music or your preferred retailer.

Purchase: Amazon, iTunes, J&R Music or your preferred retailer.