Welcome Guest 

Register

Forum Home » Books Discussion » Discuss the Books » Folk music/Elf Music
Author Topic:
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 29, 2010 05:27
There's not much about Elven music in the books, just little scraps of hints here and there. The Lothlorien chapters of the Fellowship of the Ring have two references to Elven music: Haldir's comment that their fingers of late are more on bow strings than harp strings, and of course the "Lament for Gandalf."

In the film the "Lament for Gandalf" is done very well, IMHO. It's a Gregorian, antiphon (call-response) style with the former Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Frasier singing the lead. I've always imagined that the Galadhrim singers simply congregated in an natural ampitheater-bowl spontaneously and started singing antiphon-style to some lead Elf's calling out of phrases.

The other reference to harp playing is probably a very old stereotype of the harp being the instrument of choice of deep bardic types who linger long in woodlands green. I have cannibalized Michael Hague's illustrated version of The Hobbit where the two Mirkwood Elves are up in trees playing harps ... harp music being, of course, mystical and delicate and beautiful, as played by beings of similar qualities.

The only other clear reference to music is in The Hobbit when the dwarves and Bilbo chance upon the Elves in Mirkwood having a feast. If the LotR movie version of "Lament for Gandalf" was spot-on, I'd suggest the new film should have something like the Scandinavian folk group Hedningarna's "Navdi/Fasa" from their Hippjokk album (or 1989-2003 compilation) with native Lapland singer-chanter Wimme. It sounds NoEuro pagan/folk and Native American at the same time and it really rocks without any electric instruments, i.e., Mirkwoodsy.

Well, once again, we can only imagine about an aspect of another race's makeup....

[Edited on 6/4/2010 by cirdaneth]
Lucy_Took
CoE Volunteer
Posts: 1077
Send Message
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 29, 2010 05:52
Well...I would guess that every sector of elves would have their own idea of music,like you said.

If you dig really hard on YouTube,you can find some clips of Tolkien singing in Quenya himself. I think that would give the best idea of what Elvish music sounds like.
LadyBeruthiel
Council Member
Posts: 94
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 29, 2010 04:38
In Donald Swann's 1967 song cycle, "The Road Goes Ever On," there is one melody which Swann says was suggested by Tolkien himself; it is "Namarie," and it sounds very much like Gregorian chant. The rest of the songs are Swann's settings of poems from LOTR, and are nothing like it.
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 30, 2010 03:27
Over on YouTube I found a lot of Namarie renditions. This is my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmtBleOQSz0 . Another one is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTgwvadr3J0. Good stuff.
cirdaneth
Books Admin & Books Forum Moderator
Posts: 2069
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 31, 2010 05:09
Wonderful. Thank you.

As a professional singer of a capela folk ballads, I judge these to be utterly exquisite.
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 31, 2010 06:30
Yes, cirdaneth, the first one from Kathilisi I'm especially partial to. I wish she would record it on better equipment.

I'm a huge fan of the Tolkien Ensemble. There's a nice effort from Yes's Jon Anderson "In Elven Lands." The Russian ensemble "Caprice" also did a Tolkien-themed CD "Elvenmusic." They also did some music in their own Elf language.

There should be a list of Tolkien-based music with reviews...

What sort of folk ballads do you sing, cirdaneth? Throughout Europe I've seen an explosion of medieval folk music. Here in the States, though, we're still pretending to be cowboys
LadyBeruthiel
Council Member
Posts: 94
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 31, 2010 02:48
Hercynian, those are just lovely! Thanks for posting them. Maybe we need a forum for Music of Middle Earth?
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 31, 2010 04:46
Try these out too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QqcyuWHW9o and Signe Asmussen singing "Galadriel's Song of Eldamar": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9Erdh3XFJ8. A few other too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is6N-KnPqzQ&feature=related . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l0uQlzh66Y&feature=related . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hta5sLWlBMQ. and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irRxzfsfWNU

I don't think anyone has honored Tolkien like the TE. This music stands up to anything produced in the 20th century classical world.
El-Tazrín
Council Member
Posts: 363
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: March 31, 2010 10:54
Some bits of this song are quite Elvish sounding to me. But it's lush anyway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxKzTowWxko&feature=channel
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: April 01, 2010 04:35
Yes, nice, El-Tazrin. Somebody once said about Einstein that he constantly tried to think the unthinkable -- and brought back a few gems. I'm trying to be a writer myself -- about fairies -- and to try to imagine the metaphysical, intellectual (and musical) goings-on of a superior race is like trying to think the unthinkable. Like I said in my book, we're the dog and our master has shown us his wedding pictures. Now we go out and try to tell the other animals ... about something we're deeply impressed by, but hardly understand or can grasp. And I guess music is the medium (along with poetry maybe) where we modern humans can approximate greatness uncharacteristically beyond our "real, everyday" selves.
cirdaneth
Books Admin & Books Forum Moderator
Posts: 2069
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: April 05, 2010 09:56
I've changed the name of this thread to broaden its scope and cover folk-song parallells in Tolkien, and to allow me to answer Hercynian's question.

I sing the songs and long story-ballads that were handed down orally until the advent of recording. They have no known authors and 'floating' verses tend to crop up in several songs. Variants are found in different counties and even countries. They deal with myth, legend and history and often combine elements of all three. Professor Tom Shippey mentions ballads in connection with Tolkien, and I sense echoes of them everywhere.

The shorter songs deal with the lives and conditions of ordinary people through the centuries, farming, mining, military recruiting, strikes, mine disasters, storms and sinkings, and of course family feuds, love, longing, and grief. I note that hobbits seem to write spontaneously and Frodo adapts one of Bilbo's songs to suit the moment. Tolkien, of course, reaches back to Beowulf over a thousand years ago. I don't go nearly that far.

The tunes of English folk-song use more than just the major and minor 'modes' that we know today. Once there were more than a dozen modes but our ears are unaccustomed to them and many seeme to begin and end in the middle of nowhere. Once your brain clicks in on these, they become haunting and emotive. That, I believe, is where elven music would be found.

Folk music goes on and songs by known authors are slipping gently into the stream all the time. Mediaeval 'art' music is a different animal altogether and a study in itself, though the lines can get blurry.

As to American folk music being all cowboys, don't you believe it. The English collector Cecil Sharpe collected over 3000 folk songs in the early C20. After that he crossed the pond and collected 1500 relatives of those songs in the Appalachians alone.

It goes further than that. One of our old 'cautionary tales' turns up in the US as both 'The Streets of Laredo' and 'St James Infirmary Blues' Communities mould music and history to their own current needs. It is a process that cannot die.

Like the elves.

[Edited on 6/4/2010 by cirdaneth]
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: April 08, 2010 12:51
Great to hear about your singing. There used to be an on-line label called WovenWheatWhispers that had many esoteric English (mainly) folk acts. Very good stuff. So as an American I can only chase after the Europeans who have gone out and found the original music, like Shirley Collins, Fairport, Steeleye Span, and such like and recorded it for the mass audience.

One thing I find about Tolkien, his poetry, and how the TE treated his music was that much is ballad/troubadour, i.e., stylized story/legend-telling. Another thing is how much is praise/wonderment-oriented. The song Galadriel sings "I Sang of Leaves..." is blissful. That sort of sentiment and beauty just aren't heard much today.
cirdaneth
Books Admin & Books Forum Moderator
Posts: 2069
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: Folk music/Elf Music
on: April 09, 2010 12:26
Ah! a person of taste. We used to stay with Steeleye when we were gigging in the south.

If you have ever come across Martin Carthy's recording of "The Banks of Green Willow" imagine setting the tune to "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold" from the beginning of The Hobbit. Its mode sounds very Dwarf-like.
cirdaneth
Books Admin & Books Forum Moderator
Posts: 2069
Send Message
Avatar
Post Re: Folk music/Elf Music
on: November 25, 2012 02:29
Interesting discussion here from 2010. Worth re-reading. Lots of musical links. Let me know any that don't work.
Hercynian
Council Member
Posts: 118
Send Message
Avatar
Post Re: Folk music/Elf Music
on: December 26, 2012 08:47
Once I went YouTube and just started listening/watching all the "fairy/elf" themed vids. It's all but endless! And it's all pretty much Tolkien-esque, i.e., clean, spiritually-pure, deep-forested. It reveals great longing for what I've long said is a huge part of us: longing for elfdom, for the beautiful, high-sentient, angelic humanoid embedded all but weightlessly in Nature. The "elf-friendly" music gives us glimpses of this realm.

Perhaps check out Hildegard von Bingen as sung by Jocelyn Montgomery and produced by David Lynch (yeah, that David Lynch, "Twin Peaks," etc.). Here are some links:

http://youtu.be/aDFUA4ZzU54
http://youtu.be/TkzVbvvCWXs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icNd55pMCwE&feature=share&list=PL857B7B17CF3BE8

Here's Omnia doing good stuff:

http://youtu.be/9xsOSn82F_U
Members Online
Print Friendly, PDF & Email