10 Extraordinary Partnerships Between Composers and Directors

[h2]7. Howard Shore and David Cronenberg[/h2]

Howard Shore is best known for his legendary work scoring Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings – arguably the greatest film score ever composed – but before his adventures in Middle Earth, Shore’s film career primarily involved collaborations with David Cronenberg. To this day, their creative partnership remains one of the tightest in the industry, with Shore having written the score to all but one of Cronenberg’s films from 1979 onwards.

It is an easy collaboration to take for granted, in fact, but a highly important one when examining the relationship between composer and director. Cronenberg is one of the most unpredictable filmmakers working today, having made all different kinds of horror, dark psychological dramas, period pieces, and more; through it all, Shore has adapted perfectly, his music playing an indispensable role in realizing Cronenberg’s evolving tonal ambitions. Shore’s Cronenberg scores are almost entirely unrecognizable from his sweeping, symphonic work on Lord of the Rings, but the same musical expertise and precision that defined those scores is always on display in Cronenberg’s films, even though the music is smaller, subtler, and affects the viewers in less obvious ways. Cronenberg would not be the director we know and love without Shore’s contributions, and I believe the same probably holds true the other way around; these films gave Shore the opportunity to become a great composer, and the world of film is infinitely richer for his genius.

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