[oddkins]

I've been lucky enough to attend all three performances of the film scores live at the Royal Albert Hall and totally agree with Folwren as to how wonderful the experience was. The score comes alive compared to listening to a studio recorded version normally heard as the soundtrack. You just get so much more emotion from a live performance, and it was incredible seeing the different instruments being used to make those iconic sounds recognizable from the films. Though at times it was easy to forget that there was a live orchestra playing away below the screen, since the storyline is still so compelling after repeated viewings!

I should mention that when we went to FotR live we were also lucky enough to have a talk by Howard Shore and Doug Adams before the performance and they told us about some of the more unusual instruments. And of course we also had the London Oratory Schola boys choir and London Voices - original soundtrack artists - perform the vocals, which was incredible, too!

I do agree that the fortes drowned out the dialogue a little bit, but on the whole it was better than in the threatre! My only minor criticism would be to do with the acoustics of RAH, which caused the dialogue track to be far more echoey than a normal movie theatre would.