Hans Zimmer or Howard Shore?

[Beanamir of Gondor]

Originally Posted by dancing spawn of ungoliant

In LotR, Shore did amazing job creating music for different kind of places and people from Hobbiton to Mordor, west to east, which undoubtedly required a vivid imagination. But hasn't Zimmer done the same, taking us from the Caribbean seas to a 19th century Japan (The Last Samurai) and the Roman empire in between (King Arthur, Gladiator)?

Shore's versatility within one movie (even if it was a 11-hour-long one) is just awe-inspiring whereas while having some true gems in his scores, Zimmer sometimes seems to get stuck with a certain sound or a "feel" for an entire soundtrack.

I agree, absolutely. Shore had so much more room to work with than Zimmer did, and so we got to hear all the different parts of the scores mixing in a magnificent fashion. It wove almost seamlessly, the Rohirric themes with the Gondorian themes at the Pelennor Fields, added with the Hobbit themes and the "White Rider" theme at the Black Gate, near the end of RotK.

However! I would argue that we also got to hear this in Zimmer's work with the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films. In Dead Man's Chest, Jack Sparrow (excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow) has his own separate Waltz, and Davy Jones got a kind of funereal dirge: the two themes mix with Barbossa's thundering theme (Klaus Badelt's invention, Curse of the Black Pearl) in the scene with Tia Dalma. The magnificent "Will and Elizabeth's Suite" from the first movie comes together with Jack's waltz again, during Jack's final faceoff with the Kraken. I know this is getting off-topic, but to compare Zimmer's theming with Shore's, we could also move on to Gladiator, where Maximus's "Wheat" theme blends right into the "Barbarian Horde" strains multiple times. Each movie definitely has its own "feel", as the dancing spawn mentioned, but there are definite breakaways.

It's not even in terms of location or character with Zimmer: Shore seems to work exclusively with the races of Middlearth (Men, Elves, Uruks, Orcs, Hobbits, Wraiths, and Dwarves) in their separate locations (Gondor, Rohan, Isengard, Mordor, Moria, Rivendell, Hobbiton, Lothlorien, and Minas Morgul). When those races move someplace else, regardless of who else is already in that particular location, their particular theme is played. For instance, when the Riders of Rohan travel to the Pelennor Fields, what do we hear? The violin solo we heard when Eowyn was standing in Edoras. When Celeborn's Elven army marches to Helm's Deep, what do we hear? The "Lament for Gandalf", which makes little sense, considering that it was a onetime song, sung only when the Fellowship arrived in Caras Galadhon. Shore wrote very little that was emotion- or action-based, which is ultimately why I think he's more limited a composer than Zimmer, though he is, without doubt, equally as musically talented.

In any case, I doubly agree with dancing spawn of ungoliant: we can't really judge the two against one another, because Zimmer hasn't had the opportunity to create an eleven-hour score and work with quite a huge, diverse cast of characters.