I watched the DVD about the composer, Howard Shore, who has written the score for the “Lord of the Rings.” It comes with a special edition of the “Return of the King”'s soundtrack. Sir James Galway played the tinwhistle for this movie, as well as his gold Boehm flute for one track.
Does anyone know what type of whistle Galway plays? Just curious,
Jeanie
Seems like an extravagant assignment. Why, many of us woulda played the track good enough just to be in the credits, not to mention available whistle Irtrad pros. Hard to imagine golden-flute guy taking time out of his world travels to tootle for a movie. Are we sure Coppola wasn’t the exec producer of this thing? The [over-budget] horror…
Will see movie after xmas when the hubbub settles. Looking forward to all of it, including hearing that score.
Oh yeah, in appearances I have seen on video, he had a Generation.
On a barely related note, Billy Boyd (Pippin) is a better singer than I would have guessed.
I’ve got the soundtracks for FotR and RotK but not TT. Frankly, I bought them both for about 2 tracks each, the rest of it I find only marginally interesting. I think that they could’ve been done better. shrugs
I remember hearing the whistle in RotK and thinking ‘what an incredible sounding whistle!’ I’m sure the whistle was top notch… but whoever this golden flute tooter is, he’s no slouch with a fipple plug! bgb
Yeah, Pippin can sing. And Annie Lennox sounds great during the closing credits.
The whistle was good but not special
He sure has come a long way since the “Howard Shore and His All-Nurse Band” days!
I really loved the music on ROTK, the sound of the whistle was wonderful and of course my mind went “wonder what whitles they use… must find out and go buy some..”.
/Peter
Well, I know there is a James Galway brand whistle, because I have one. No, I didn’t buy it – my father gave it to me. I have no idea where he got it. Anyway, it’s a Gen-type whistle, with the tube made of brushed aluminum and the head of black plastic. It’s a decent whistle, actually, although I still like my Oak better. So, since he’s got his own whistle out there, I imagine that might be what he plays. Or not, but what would that say about the whistles?
Steven
I don’t know about the tracks in question, but when I saw him do that “two-whistle” trick (while playing Harvest Home) years ago, I’m pretty sure he was playing a pair of good old Generation Ds.
… And I swear I recall hearing him quoted as saying he wasn’t “a real whistle player” – and that’s probably true, he’s too classical – but I still wouldn’t argue with being able to play what I heard him do that day.
Jeanie,
Which DVD or DVD set are you referring to?
Lawrence
I saw him in concert a few years ago and he did a piece on the whistle, I was in the nosebleed section so I couldn’t see what kind of whistle it was but he did mention that it was a $400 whistle.
Oh, well. I guess with a couple/three gold Boehms in your gig bag, you can only stay a “man of the people” whistle player for so long. 
(It was about 20 years ago when I saw him. Then he did that album with Phil Coulter and I … erm, let’s just call it a musical parting of the ways.)
The DVD I saw it on is a special edition sound track of “Return of the King.” (The CD’s number is 48560-2, New Line Records). It has the soundtrack in the front pocket and the DVD is on the back pocket. The DVD’s called, “Howard Shore: An Introspective.” It’s about a 25 minute documentary about how Shore wrote the music. It includes some very brief shots of Galway with his whistle and gold flute, as well as a section with Annie Lennox and with the opera singer Renee Fleming–both sang tracks for the movie.
ironically enough the muramatsu he plays on is their cheapest model
What’s your problem? Galway is a worldclass virtuoso! So why shouldn’t he play a topclass-instrument? If not him, who else should have the right to play such a flute?
Oooh oooh! Pick me! pick me!
Uh-oh, an admittedly feeble attempt at humor goes horribly awry. Sorry about that! Seriously, I have no problem with it at all. You bet he can play whatever he wants … and no matter what it is, I bet he can make it sound better than just about anyone else … But I do remember being impressed by those Generations (in fact, Galway’s playing Generations was one of my longest-running self-arguments for not caving in and spending any more than $20 on a whistle for myself – after the #1 argument, which is, convolutedly, not being good enough to deserve a better one!)
I remember Muramatsu originally setting out to compete with Haynes and Powell (we’re talking the 80s, here) – just for curiosity, what is their cheapest model?
Anyway, hope I cleared that up. 
cat.
The whistle/flute stuff was a welcome break. There are Sam and Frodo, clawing their way to the top of the furnace/forge/whatever mountain and a lovely lilting sound breaks through, clearing from my mind the thought that had previously been gripping it…i.e. “please…no more epic battle scenes!”
That was the part I was most dying to see in the movie and it has always been my favorite part in the books. That whistle part breaking in there was so beautiful and inspiring and peaceful and such a perfect contrast to what they were doing that it was just awesome.
I so agree with you, Sam. I was shocked by that song. I never would’ve guessed he had a good singing voice!! It was really nice. I’m really picky about singing voices, too…I was very pleasantly surprised by that song. (Though that whole bit of Denethor pigging out on tomatoes, grapes, etc. while he sang was really strange…I suppose they did it to show the stark contrast between him and his son, galloping off on a suicide charge just to try to win his father’s love. But it was still weird. I was like “what’s with all these close-ups on his stained mouth?” 
)