What gets me is the way Newman uses range to keep us grounded in the harsh reality of prison life. Lets look at an example, shall we?
Observant viewers will notice that Boggs does not, in fact, say "fuck off" when he enters the room. What a dick.
First off, and it's hard to hear here, when does the music start? To my ears it's right when Boggs pulls out that nasty looking shank, already Newman is giving us some serious information - Andy is literally on the floor and the music is rumbling in a barely audible register informing us of his subjugation to Boggs. The range continues to rumble for most of the duration of the scene, we gain some middle ground in the strings when Andy starts to taunt Boggs about his reading skills, and while the cluster tells us that Andy is still pretty screwed, he's not quite subjugated like we originally thought. Then Boggs throws the shank and beats the crap out of Andy to a lovely voiceover by Morgan Freeman, and here is where Newman does something truly remarkable. That melancholy oboe enters, a reminder of Andy's former freedom, and his hope - strained at the top of its range, attempting to break away, but completely unable. The camera then focuses on Boggs while he is in the hole, and subsequently being released, and the music returns to the middle in the piano and English Horn, now the music comes to us from Boggs's perspective, he likes prison, he can thrive and so the instruments around him are in comfortable ranges, while the harmonies give us insight into his rather unsavory character. Two distinct musical techniques describing two things at the same time, and the result is deeply moving and powerfully upsetting. But Newman isn't done yet, oh no, he's just getting started. The music continues to come to us from Boggs's perspective, and something bad is about to happen to him. That high oboe returns and when Boggs sees Byron Hadley standing in his cell, we know, because the music has told us, that Boggs's time being "free" within prison is absolutely done. Newman again shifts our musical perspective and gives us a powerful rumble in the piano for Boggs while the English Horn returns to the middle along with the piano right at the moment Boggs is framed within the railing (he looks like he's in prison because he is no longer free to do as he pleases), we are Andy again, and justice is being served. However, in prison, justice is never a pleasant sight to behold.
In fact, Newman uses the same techniques again later in the film to play with our sense of hope while Andy and Red speak candidly about Zihuatenejo and Andy's thoughts about freedom. Let's take a look.
Newman plays with us a little differently this time, using primarily the piano to essentially tell us the outcome of the story before we've seen it. He begins with two oscillating chords as Andy asks Red if he thinks he'll ever get out of prison. Red responds with doubt, saying he'll be an old man, and the music reflects his doubt, like the music stuck between two chords, Red is trapped within the walls of Shawshank State Prison. But then Andy starts talking about Zihuatenejo and the music undergoes a paradigm shift. Suddenly we have melody, and a beautiful one at that. It does not feel devoid as the "Stoic" theme does, but rather it feels, it emotes, and Newman tells us in that moment that Andy will escape. That oboe returns, still in the highest fringes of its register, signaling to us that Andy's freedom will come none too easily, and that great work is to be done, but it's not accompanied by a piano forcefully pulling us down to the reality of prison, no, this time we are able to feel as though the oboe may finally be free. The camera then turns to Red, and we return to those two chords from the opening of the cue, but we're still looking at this from Andy's perspective and so Newman returns almost instantaneously to Andy's hope theme. During this exchange Red expresses doubts, and Andy attempts to discourage those doubts, therefore we are still in the world of Andy's hope.
Then Newman gives us some insight into what is going on behind Red's words. He's talking about how he couldn't survive, but the truth is, for the first time in years, he's considering what life on the outside might really be like, and he's only able to do so because of the thought of facing it with his friend. The film isn't about Andy's redemption, he was always a good man, if a little cold, the film is about Red's redemption, I sincerely believe that. Red is the one who learns to hope, and through friendship becomes a man who can face what he did and see how foolish it really was. Newman's music, simply by bringing in a string section ennobles Andy, and Red along with him. But Red is not yet fully redeemed by the power of Andy's hope, and as he proclaims that "these are just shitty pipe dreams" we are grounded to those repeating chords again. For this time, Red's doubt has won out over his hope, and so the music returns to the predictable, just like the routine of life "on the inside."
This brings us to the scene where Andy escapes, take a look.
Notice right off the bat, we hear those two oscillating chords. When Andy looks at the poster however, the piano does something miraculous - it starts to move, not only rhythmically but in range as well, we move to the middle, and even to what could be called the top. It's now or never, and Andy's freedom has never been so close. Newman states the "stoic" theme twice in the low strings, a testament to Andy's always thoughtful and analytic mind, he will need it if his plan is going to work. The theme grows, now the full string section is involved, and it becomes an anthem for Andy's escape - his cold calculation, his thoughtful demeanor, all the things that got him into this mess, are going to meld with his undying hope and finally be his salvation. And then Andy crawls through a literal river of shit, and Newman paints it as a grueling struggle. He continues the steady growth of the stoic theme, adding in trombones and horns, occasional dissonances rock the tonal world as Andy comes closer and closer to escape, and then finally, it happens. As Andy stands, and embraces the rain, we hear brass in a choir for the first time in the entire film. In fact, before Andy enters the waste removal pipe there is no brass at all. Newman gives us freedom: that unattainable truth has been hiding in the brass section the entire time. He adds a whole new color to help us (and Andy) believe what may be the unbelievable, Andy is free. The journey was literally hell (and pretty shitty *rimshot!*) but he is baptized in both the rain and brass, and comes out clean, absolved of all sins. It's not a subtle metaphor, and so the music isn't subtle either.
Now Red needs to be absolved, and at the end of the film he is.
Three things herald Red's redemption: the oboe moves to its most comfortable range, the strings are allowed to soar, and the "Redemption" theme appears for the second time time, having only been heard once before, when Andy secured the beer for the work detail.
How do they occur? The oboe first appears in the middle, comfortable register, when Red finishes reading the letter and he folds it up, he's made up his mind, he has allowed himself to be freed of his dependence on the walls, and hope has filled his soul. While Andy is baptized by the ringing of the trumpet, Red's baptism is significantly more subdued, by the intonation of an oboe. Red then leaves his mark upon his boarding house room with the words "So was Red," the strings are finally let free to move to their highest ranges in a beautiful melodic fashion. See, while Brooks left though suicide, Red left through hope and friendship and so his new theme, a theme for his redemption is allowed to soar, as he is soaring, into the highest comfortable registers of the violin section. Red's transformation, his baptism, or most obvious, his redemption is complete, and Newman's score played no small role.
