Throughout the composition, Shore has woven over 100 identified leitmotifs (or over 160, when considering the music of the Hobbit films), which are interrelated and categorized into groups that correspond to the Middle-earth cultures to which they relate, forming one of the greatest and most intricate collections of themes in the history of cinema. He made use of an immense ensemble including a large symphony orchestra (principally, the London Philharmonic Orchestra), multiple instrumental 'bands', various choirs, and vocal and instrumental soloists, requiring an ensemble ranging from 230 to 400 musicians. Shore conceived the score as operatic and antiquated-sounding. Over 13 hours of the music (including various alternate takes) have been released across various formats. Shore wrote many hours of music for The Lord of the Rings, effectively scoring the entire film length. The scores are often considered to represent one of the greatest achievements in the history of film music in terms of length of the score, the size of the staged forces, the unusual instrumentation, the featured soloists, the multitude of musical styles and the number of recurring musical themes used.
The music of The Lord of the Rings film series was composed, orchestrated, conducted and produced by Howard Shore.
