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.