Barad-Dur

This theme is essentially a menacing variation of the Ring theme. The first time you hear it is in the midst of Frodo's initial discussion with Gandalf about the ring, and Shore quite clearly sets it up so that at first you think you're hearing the Ring theme. Barad-Dur opens with the same two notes, and then makes an unexpected chromatic drop to a note not in the scale:

The effect of this out-of-kilter note is to impart a sense of imbalance, wildness, wrongness.

When the Ring goes into the fire at the end and Barad-Dur is destroyed, this theme undergoes a remarkable resolution. The key shifts to the relative major (F-sharp minor to A major in these examples) and the chromatic note is gone:

To get technical for a moment: Normally, when a composer does this minor-to-major shift, he will use the parallel major (F-sharp minor to F-sharp major). But Shore does something interesting: He uses the same notes but in a different key, so that the first note (C-sharp in our examples), which has all this time been heard as the fifth in the minor scale, is now the third in the relative major scale. In other words, we haven't just moved from minor to major and cleaned up a dissonance; the very ground has shifted, and we hear the theme in a whole new way.

Occurrences:

	Heard briefly in background during the Battle of Dagorlad in the prelude.
	Frodo looks at the envelope containing the ring; cut to shot of Barad-Dur itself.
	The Council of Elrond breaks into pandemonium as everyone argues at once.
	In Two Towers, Saruman ruminates on the alliance between himself and Sauron, and the inevitability of victory "at the union of the two towers." Interestingly, the score at this moment sounds the Barad-Dur theme, but there is no hint of Saruman's music — as if to say "You only think this is an alliance, but in fact you're just a tool."
	Frodo and Sam arrive at the Black Gate [variation, then the full version].
	The palantir grabs Pippin.
	Pippin looks out over the ramparts of Minas Tirith with Gandalf: "Mordor — there it lies" [in the background, very subtle].
	Minas Morgul opens [with Danger].
	After his first escape from Shelob, Frodo wrestles with Gollum, who pleads that "the Precious made us do it" [very quiet in horns].
	As Barad-Dur falls into ruins, we hear the theme rendered triumphantly, in a major key for the first time.