Reception
TheOneRing.net described the score of The Desolation of Smaug as "extraordinar[ily good]" with many new themes, noting in particular the Smaug theme which powerfully "dominates the later scenes", and the Tauriel theme which recalled "many a swashbuckling adventure from cinema history". [11] Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks wrote "Like The Return of the King and An Unexpected Journey, therefore, The Desolation of Smaug merits a split rating. You have to keep your perspective when approaching this work, tempering your expectations and accepting the benefits along with the drawbacks." [12] Jonathan Broxton of Movie Music UK wrote "What Howard Shore is achieving through his Lord of the Rings music, and now through these Hobbit scores, is nothing short of remarkable – a truly immersive world of music which follows a strict leitmotivic design, but is fluid enough to introduce themes for new characters, places and concepts as each new film requires, without compromising the integrity of the work as a whole. While the music in The Desolation of Smaug doesn’t have the crowd-pleasing memorability of some of the other works in the series, while doesn’t have as much choral bombast as previous entries, and while the inherent darkness of many of the themes and performances may be off-putting to some who need more lightness in their music, its intellectual design is utterly flawless, and its orchestration is consistently interesting. This is one of the scores of the year." [13]
A critic from Classic FM wrote "There are snatches and remnants of themes from the previous scores to be picked out here but the overwhelming atmosphere is generally more dark and brooding than triumphal - lots of snarling brass and low rumbles." [14] James Southall of Movie Wave wrote "The Desolation of Smaug doesn’t have that memorable theme, but instead it has some very fine set pieces and probably around an hour of music that’s consistently good. That means that overall it’s a distinct step up over its predecessor – it suffers from the same faults but Shore injects that little bit more energy into a higher portion of it. It still needs an album producer to go through it meticulously and chop out the fat, but there’s more than enough here to make it worth persevering, however hard that is at times." [15] Melissa Redman of Renowned for Sound wrote "Shore has once again created a wondrous soundtrack which will enrich and enhance the film and the audience’s emotions throughout. Whether you love music score soundtracks or not, The Desolation of Smaug is definitely one to take notice of." [16] Adrian Horan of York Vision wrote "Shore does a magnificent job in capturing the essence of The Desolation of Smaug in his soundtrack. He stays comfortable in some parts, using old tricks in a new setting; in others, he experiments with what he has learnt across his time as a composer, daring to be different in some aspects, paying off entirely." [17]
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