I am not musically trained, so excuse any laymen terms or lack of fine details below

Theme vs. Motif
Many fans and reviews are referring to the 'motifs' used in this score, as opposed to the usual themes. If I understood correctly, motifs are usually shorter, comprising just a few notes, whereas a theme is a more lengthy and complex piece of music, which can be developed into a whole concert suite if necessary.

A recent example would be Batman Begins, where James Newton Howard himself, along with Hans Zimmer, chose to score the caped crusader's on-screen presence with a simple but effective 2-note motif, as opposed to the more fleshy themes composed by Danny Elfman and Elliot Goldenthal for the previous films. The idea worked wonderfully in my opinion, and hearing the motif as Bruce Wayne stood up in the cave, or as Batman stood on the edge of the skyscraper, was as effective as any theme could be.

The same can be said for various parts of King Kong's score.

The score is very thematic, and while some thematic ideas are short, powerful, 'motifs' (if the above is correct), there are also great themes throught this score.

These are the main thematic components of this score, as heard on the CD release:
(Please note that I have only seen the film twice, and heard the score as on the CD, so many of the scene descriptions are hypothetical)

Skull Island / Mystery theme
I'm not sure what to name this theme because it appears in various scenes which aren't obviously linked. It's a beautiful and mysterious 7-note theme which is the first music we hear in the film. It's heard on the CD as follows:

• Over the logos and main production titles, just before the main title appears. (Track 1)
  
• As the venture starts it's engines and Denham keeps Driscoll onboard (Track 5 1:57) (?)
  
• The first full-blown rendition is heard during the great panoramic shot of the Venture crossing Brooklyn bay (Track 6's beginning)
  
• In Track 4 (0:22) it gets a lengthy treatment as we see a montage aboard the Venture as Driscoll seduces Darrow and elsewhere word reaches the ship of the warrant for Denham's arrest.
  
• In Track 8 (0:35) we hear it as the film crew leave the ship and head towards the deserted village (?). We later hear a heroic rendition of it at 6:04 - presumably during some part of the scene with the natives.
  
• We hear it again at 0:32 during 'Tooth and Claw' - this is one of the appearances that suggest it's a 'Skull Island' theme.
  
• Track 14 'Captured' (0:32) - ditto
  
• There are 2 renditions during the 'Beauty Killed the Beast' suite - a brief appearance during Part II (1:52) and then an lengthy rendition during part III (1:00 onwards), which reaches heart-wrenching proportions at around 1:51. I'm not sure how the theme ties in with these scenes, but maybe it was just a case of the theme fitting the scene (just like Leia's Theme when Obi-Wan dies).
  

Kong motif
Maybe more appropriately 'Fear of Kong' becuase this theme often crops up when Kong appears menacing to the characters or the audience. It's a menacing, 5-note motif. Appearances on the CD are:

• As soon as 'King Kong' appears on the screen in big bold letters
  
• Track 8 (It's deserted) at 1:11 - ? when the film crew arrive at the huge wall and gate
  
• Track 9 (Something Monstrous) at 0:56 - when we first see Kong emerge from the trees and stop in front of Ann
  
• Track 12 (Tooth and claw) at 4:54 as he finally kills the third T-Rex
  
• Track 13 (That's All There Is) at 0:22 - ? When Kong goes ape to impress/scare Ann, before she starts her acrobatics
  
• Interestingly, there are no statements of this motif (at least on CD) during the New York scenes, maybe becuase by then the audience can sympathise with Kong. I'm not sure if there were any appearances when Kong broke his chains in the theatre.
  

'Strength of Kong' motif
Not sure what to name this one, but I guess this fits, since it seems to appear when Kong shows his power. It consists of 4 ascending notes, at times extended to 7 notes. This ties in closely with the 'Awe of Kong' motif below, especially during the T-Rex scenes.

• Track 12 (Tooth and Claw) starts off with 2 statements of this theme at 0:15 during the T-Rex fight.
  
• There's another appearance at 0:57, later on in the same track and scene
  
• And another at 3:38
  
• Track 14 (Captured) also starts off with 2 statements of the motif at 0:15, presumably as Kong breaks through the gate and faces the crew.
  
• During the finale suite, the motif appears at 0:43 during part III, possibly scoring some particular feat during the airplane seige.
  

'Awe of Kong' motif
Again, not sure what this motif is meant to signify, but judging from it's appearance on the CD it seems to represent moments when we, and the characters, are left in awe of Kong. It's a 6-note motif, with the accent on the 4th note (if that makes any musical sense). Appearances on the CD are:

• During Track 12 (Tooth and Claw), the motif makes it's first appearance at 1:07 as the T-Rex fight ensues, and it then gets a huge statement with choir at 2:23.
  
• Later on in the same track there's a particularly spine-tingling rendition (without choir) at 4:21 during the final part of the sequence, as Kong wrestles with the 3rd T-Rex, just before killing him.
  
• After killing the T-Rex, a muted version of the motif appears at 6:00 in the same track just after Ann runs after Kong shouting 'Wait!' and he throws her onto his shoulder and runs off. You can see this scene in the NBC preview ( http://www.kongisking.net/perl/newsview/15/1133233488 ) at the 1:30 mark.
  
• The motif also appears in Track 14 (Captured) at 1:48. It's a particularly huge rendition as Kong breaks free of the ropes and netting (?)
  
• The motif totally dominates Track 16 as Kong scales the Empire State Building. We first hear it at the start of the track and it escalates to a huge rendition at 0:53, as we see aerial shots of him reaching the top. There's a faint, final rendition at 2:13.
  

Love Theme
This is pretty straightforward and scores the gentler moments between Ann and Kong. It's a great theme which dominates the 2 scenes it's used in, both of which appear on the CD.

• We first hear it in Track 11 (Beautiful) as Kong and Ann have their first quiet moment watching the sunset on Skull Island. It first appears at 1:37
  
• We then hear a fuller version at 2:26 - ? as the camera pans up from behind them to show us the sunset.
  
• It's played on Piano at 3:05 (same track)
  
• The 'concert piece' for this theme is the sublime 'Central Park' track (Track 15). We first hear it on piano at 0:35 as Kong is reunited with Ann in the streets of New York.
  
• It's then played on flute (?) at 1:41 (same scene)
  
• A great, faster rendition on piano is heard at 3:20 as Kong and Ann do some ice-skating. This scene is perfect, I love it.

• I'm not sure about this, but there's a great string piece that appears 2 times on the CD which seems to be a variation on the ending of the love theme. It's heard in Track 12 (Tooth and Claw) at 5:13 - as Kong stands over the T-Rex carcass and looks at Ann (see NBC clip above), and then later as Kong reaches the top of the Empire State Building (1:18 in Track 16). Not sure about this - could be a separate piece of course. Anyway it sounds great.
  

Other Notable Cues

1. 'Playful' music
This music underscores the stage comedy aspect, as well as Darrow's stage antics which she later uses to impress Kong. We first hear a cue during Track 3 'Deafeat is Always Momentary (1:46) - not sure which scene this is, but possibly when Denham is checking the posters at the seedy theatre.
The music also appears at the start of Track 5 - not sure what this underscores.
We then hear it again in Track 13 (That's All There Is...) as Ann performs her acrobatics for Kong. A muted short piece is heard at 1:31 as she does her first flip and catches his attention, and then at 2:08 as she resumes her act. The music becomes faster at 2:50 as Kong shows his appreciation and plays along.
There's also some similar music at 1:49 in Track 6 (Venture Departs) - as Bruce Baxter admires his own movie posters.

2. Sounds familiar
In the great track 'It's Deserted' (track 8) there's a short passage at 1:53 which reminds me of the opening of Willow, and then there's some great action music from 3:38 to 4:19 that sounds like John William's Star Wars scores (I'm just pointing these out - I'm sure he didn't mean to 'copy' these)

3. Elegy
James Newton Howard composed a standout elegy for the finale scene. The beautiful piece, which reminds me slightly of the better parts of 'Murder in the First' by Chris Young, dominates the last 2 tracks. It appears after the first 40 seconds of Part IV of the final suite, once Kong starts to succumb to his injuries and the music has quieted down. Full choir joins in at 1:20, and it sounds fantastic on screen. There's a great string piece added at 1:53, and then a boy solo takes over at 2:35 and segues into the next track.

The boy solo ends in the last track after Kong has fallen to the street below. There's a quiet string section as the people gather around and comment, and then there's a pause in the music for Denham to deliver the final line of the film (at 1:58) and then at 2:04 the music soars again as the camera zooms out and fade out as the credits roll. The choral elegy is heard again at 2:45, with that great string piece I love at around 3:10.

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Please feel free to correct or add to the above. As I said, I've only seen the film twice so I can't definetely match the pieces to the scenes, except for a few I remember well. Same goes for the names and uses of the themes or motifs.

I found the score in the film pretty average. Howard certainly gets the job done, as usual, but for a film such as this, which aims higher, it sort of leaves the music in the dust. The love theme is solid but never especially moving, just as the island theme is solid but never especially exciting (not to mention that it sounds like I've heard it a few times already from Silvestri).

One thing in particular which I did admire was the heroic Kong theme that showed up a few times. It really had a power that made it stand out not only from the score but from the sound mix. I also liked that it seemed to be modeled after the Island theme. I really felt during those moments that Howard was inspired rather than just rushing to get the score finished in time.

From Music: An Appreciation by Roger Kamien:

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"A theme is a melody used as the basis for a musical composition."

"Motives...are short musical ideas developed within a composition."

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Further definitions thanks to Wikipedia:

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The 1957 Encyclopédie Larousse defines a motif as follows:

"a small element characteristic of a musical composition, which guarantees in various ways the unity of a work or a part of the work (a motif can be assimilated into a cell, and can have three aspects that may be dissociated from one another, rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic)."

The Encyclopédie de la Pléiade defines a motif as follows:

a "melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic cell, characteristic of a musical work."

The 1980 New Grove defines a motif as follows:

"a short musical idea, be it melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic, or all three. A motif may be of any size, though it is most commonly regarded as the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that still maintains its identity as an idea. It is most often thought of in melodic terms, and it is this aspect of the motif that is connoted by the term 'figure'."

The 1958 Encyclopédie Fasquelle defines a motif as follows:

"In classical musical syntax, this is the smallest analyzable element (phrase) within a subject; it may contain one or more cells. A harmonic motif is a series of chords defined in the abstract, that is, without reference to melody or rhythm. A melodic motif is a melodic formula, established without reference to intervals. A rhythmic motif is the term designating a characteristic rhythmic formula, an abstraction drawn from the rhythmic values of a melody."

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And for theme:

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In music, a theme is the initial or primary melody.

The 1958 Encyclopédie Fasquelle defines a theme as follows:

"Any element, motif, or small musical piece that has given rise to some variation becomes thereby a theme."

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
If I'm not mistaken (I probably am) weren't motifs created for film music in general so that various characters could be given short themes without those running into whatever the film's general music theme was?

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Kirk

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Originally posted by Al:
I think the analysis provided here is more interesting than the score itself.

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Originally posted by Camillu:
Skull Island / Mystery theme

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I've been calling this the "fate motif", simply because, to my ears, it has fate written all over it. Might very well be connected to Skull Island though.

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Kong motif

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Similarly, this has always been the "doom" motif to me. It's certainly connected to Kong though. And it has four notes, not five. Always reminds me of Herrmann's Cape Fear.

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'Strength of Kong' motif

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This frequently gets the previous theme as a counterpoint. Seems to me to be some kind of "king of the jungle theme"... the musical counterpart to Kong's breast-beating.

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'Awe of Kong' motif

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This usually gets pretty impressive unisono statements. I completely agree with your description of this theme.

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A great, faster rendition on piano is heard at 3:20 as Kong and Ann do some ice-skating. This scene is perfect, I love it.

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IMHO, this is the one scene that shows how good the movie really is. If the characters and drama weren't set up perfectly at that point, it would have been the most ridiculous scene of the whole year. But it works wonderfully - as does the theme.

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3. Elegy

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It's nice and works very well in the movie, but this is actually the one part of the score which I find rather uninteresting on CD. It's not bad by any means, but to me, it doesn't stand out in any way.

1st hour of movie itself = not good.

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Originally posted by Marian Schedenig:

There's another bit of thematic music that appears at least twice. The first time seems to be at about 5:00 in track 12. I have no idea what it stands for.

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That's the part that I mentioned might be a variation on the love theme. It pops up in track 16 too as mentioned above. Not sure whether it's meant to represent anything.

Thanks for all the detailed comments, additions and corrections so far

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Originally posted by jb1234:
There's also a slowly descending motif which is closely related to the Kong motif (and to a certain extent with "The Awe of Kong" as they are often heard together). It can be heard in the majority of "The Empire State Building."

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I think you're referring to the 'Strength of Kong' motif. It's played both upwards and downwards throughout the score.

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Originally posted by Camillu:
[B]That's the part that I mentioned might be a variation on the love theme. It pops up in track 16 too as mentioned above. Not sure whether it's meant to represent anything.

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Hmm, interesting. Looking forward to hearing the score in the film again, but I want to wait for the DVD until I re-watch it.

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I think you're referring to the 'Strength of Kong' motif. It's played both upwards and downwards throughout the score.

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
I felt there should have been less music in this film. I also felt there should have been less film to score. And on the evidence of War of the Worlds, I would have given it to John Williams to score if Shore had to fall by the wayside.

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Originally posted by nuts_score:

Eh . . . no. Less score in this type of film? How much score was used in films like Jurassic Park and other epic adventures like this? Musical score lifts this genre so much that I wouldn't even consider what you just mentioned. And John Williams? He's had a great majority of fantastic work this year but he's already done so much for this genre there's absolutely no reason for his consideration. Mr. Howard is perfect and he delivered an amazing, exhilerating, heart-stopping, beautiful score.

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Well I'm allowed my opinion, so feel free to mind yours. I always marvel at people who feel the need not to simply defend the virtues of an adequate score, but push a little further to suggestion perfection. I can't think of the last perfect score-to-film match, but it certainly wasn't from this year.

Great topic! Just one question, on the last production diary of kongisking.net (http://img-nex.kongisking.net/kong/movies/PPD-00WeeksToGo_qt6_high.mov)
you hear at the end an motif I can't seem to find on the cd, but it is in the movie. You hear it when the last bottle of Chloroform is throwed at Kong and when is Kong shot at the last time. It's a great piece of music, too bad it isn't on the soundtrack.

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Well I'm allowed my opinion, so feel free to mind yours. I always marvel at people who feel the need not to simply defend the virtues of an adequate score, but push a little further to suggestion perfection. I can't think of the last perfect score-to-film match, but it certainly wasn't from this year.

As to whether there should have been less score, I'm thinking a music-to-film ratio a bit more like 75%-80% than the 95%-100% of the final product. Believe it or not, ones ears can tire of orchestral accompaniment, and it behoves a good sound designer to not let a whole film get taken up with music. I would consider the LOTR films rare cases where the musical accompaniment was of such consistently varied content that continual scoring did not fatigue the ears.

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
As for your comments on a film not matching its score perfectly, I'll ask you what you thought of Spielberg's War of the Worlds. I know you mentioned that you couldn't recollect any project in immediate memory of this year achieving film/score nirvana but I consider War of the Worlds to have one of the best sound mixes in quite a long time. Every sound in the design matched the visuals so perfectly and Williams' score very fitting with the darker nature of the film. What are your thoughts?

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By coincidence I came upon a cheap copy of the DVD yesterday, bought it, and tried it out on the home speaker system. It does sound fantastic! No library work there!

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Originally posted by peschi:
It's the last minute or so of the video. You see the part where they filmed inside the theatre. The shot after that you see Peter Jackson again you hear the music in the background.

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For example (using the names in this analysis), the "Awe of Kong" seems related to the "Skull Island" motif. And it's a perfect choice, since King Kong is the King of Skull Island.

Also the "Strenght of Kong" appears to be just an inverted & extented version of the "Kong" motif that we hear in the main titles.