Decca Records presents The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, with music composed by Academy Award® winner Howard Shore, one of film music’s most respected, honored, and active composers and conductors. The soundtrack contains an original song performed by Billy Boyd, who starred as Peregrin Took in The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, a production of New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, is the third in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Battle Of The Five Armies is Howard Shore’s final musical voyage to Middle-earth – concluding his work with director Peter Jackson on both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.

“It's been such an incredible experience and I'm very pleased to be able to finally release this last Hobbit film score. The connection to nature is very important to me and I think that was also my connection to Tolkien’s work,” Shore noted. Shore’s music for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy stands as his most towering achievement to date, garnering three Academy Awards® for his music for those films, two for Best Original Score, and one for Best Original Song. His music for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy has been performed in concerts throughout the world. In 2003, Shore conducted the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings Symphony in Wellington, New Zealand. Since then, the Symphony and The Lord of the Rings – Live to Projection concerts have been performed over 340 times by the world’s most prestigious orchestras, and has been the subject of a book by Doug Adams, The Music of The Lord of the Rings Films: A Comprehensive Account of Howard Shore's Scores.

Also included on the soundtrack is “The Last Goodbye,” performed by The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy star Billy Boyd, which he co-wrote with filmmakers Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. “Billy is not just a wonderful actor but also an extremely accomplished singer/songwriter—we are so glad he agreed once again to share his talent with us,” the filmmakers said jointly. “We cannot imagine a more perfect voice to carry us away from the shores of Middle-earth…one last time”

This Special Edition set features extended tracks, bonus tracks, and expanded liner notes
Film opens in New Zealand on 11th December