The Aviator (Soundtrack from the Motion Picture)

One would think that, after spending four years in Middle Earth providing Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy with its gargantuan Oscar-winning score, composer Howard Shore would take a little time off. Instead, the prolific Shore immediately set his sights on Martin Scorsese' s Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator. Shore wastes little time in discarding his last project's epic choral arrangements and thunderous percussion, opting for a neo-classical feel that conjures up images of old silent films and pre-Cold War Hollywood — coincidentally, Shore's next project, Jackson's remake of King Kong, is set in the same sepia-toned period. This is Shore at his most elegant and free-spirited. From the dizzying "Icarus," with its Baroque tapestry of swirling strings giving sound to the wonder of flight, to the castanets that wander throughout, illuminating the Spanish influence that permeated the culture of 1930s southern California, The Aviator celebrates the "Golden Age" of cinema and music while simultaneously deconstructing it.