Recorded live over one very special weekend in 2023, Howard Shore: Anthology – The Paris Concerts presents highlights from key scores by the multi-award-winning Canadian composer.
This new album features such diverse soundtracks as The Fly, Naked Lunch, Ed Wood, Crash, Eastern Promises and, of course, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France is conducted by Ludwig Wicki and Bastien Stil, while Mike Schäperclaus conducts Le Balcon ensemble in the chamber works.
Howard Shore was working as Saturday Night Live’s first musical director when, in 1979, he was asked to write his first film score – for his friend David Cronenberg’s The Brood. Since then, his music has graced dozens of movies (including 16 more directed by Cronenberg) and won him a string of awards, including 3 Oscars, 3 Golden Globes and 4 Grammys. He has also written for opera, ballet and the concert hall.
The rich variety resulting from this approach is reflected on this album – a generous compilation of works heard during Radio France’s 2023 “Week-End Howard Shore”. The programmes showcased music of different styles and eras, from the non-cinematic solo piano piece Catania, performed by Jean-Paul Gasparian, to the epic, orchestral-choral grandeur of Shore’s award-winning Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack, featuring the Maîtrise (children’s choir) and Chœur de Radio France.
Suites from some of his earlier film scores help demonstrate his multifaceted talents. There are the dark, sinister tones of The Fly; the cool sax lines created for Naked Lunch (with Stéphane Guillaume ably taking the solo part made famous by Ornette Coleman); the mysterious ambience of Ed Wood, where Lydia Kavina plays the theremin, as she did for the original, 30 years ago; and the eerie metallic sounds of harps and electric guitars heard in Crash. Different worlds again are conjured in the gently hypnotic extract from Esther Kahn and in the Eastern European-influenced Concertino from Eastern Promises, for solo violin and chamber ensemble. Raphaëlle Moreau is the soloist, her melancholy line enhanced in particular by the colours of clarinet and cimbalom. And, as we might expect, the album opens in Middle Earth, with a beautiful moment from The Hobbit, starring the orchestra’s principal oboist Olivier Doise.
Speaking at the end of the Radio France weekend, Howard Shore summed up his feelings: “I was overwhelmed by the dedication of the performers to study the music and play it so well, and I’m thrilled by the collaboration with Radio France and Deutsche Grammophon.”
