Howard Shore's score is beautiful.

[IronParrot]

http://www.soundtrack.net has a feature article with 30-second clips of every track on it.

It's beautiful

I haven't seen the score in context of the film yet, obviously, but judging from the score alone... this is one to remember. It will contribute to cementing the film as a classic, if the latter doesn't already do that on its own.

Memorable themes? Listen to the clip from "Many Meetings". (My favourite clip from the bunch.) This is the LOTR theme. And even by my standards, it's more than adequate. I already have it stuck in my head.

And to think that we've only heard small clips of the soundtrack. And that the soundtrack is only a truncation of the actual film score, which is about two-and-a-half times as long.

In the meantime, let's concentrate future discussion of the score here, as the soundtrack is being released within the next two weeks anyhow...