# Music for Tolkien's creation of the World



## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

Most of you may be familiar with Tolkien's Silmarillion and the story of the creation of the world by Eru Ilúvatar (God) and the Ainur (the first immortal spirits created by him) through music.

I read this book 12 years ago and I always wondered how this music would be and if there is any song composed specially for this story.

The closest one in spirit (as the form is not exactly as Tolkien wrote) that I found is the Adagio of Carl Nielsen 5th symphony, with Melkor being represented as the percussion trying to stop and dominate the music.






Anyone know of other pieces that would fit well for the ocasion?

For those not quite familiar with the story, following are some excerpts from Wikipedia that describe it, but I suggest the reading of the book that is great 

________

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainuli..._Matter_of_their _Music_.28paragraphs_1-4.29

*The Ainur and the Matter of their Music (paragraphs 1-4)*

The opening paragraphs of Ainulindalë tell of the time before Time. First to be named is Ilúvatar (God) ('Father of All', also called 'Eru - "the One, He that is Alone"' or the compound Eru Ilúvatar). Ilúvatar, as his names imply, exists before and independently of all else. He can take a particular concept, thesis or theme, and 'give a secret fire to it', will it into being, so it exists as a distinct object or entity. Such existence itself is a representation and concretization of divine conceptualizations: there is first the idea, then the concrete, or 'objective', manifestation commensurate with that idea. The 'Ainur' (meaning 'Holy Ones', singular 'Ainu') are the first such concepts-embodied or themes-realized; they are the children 'of Ilúvatar's thought.' Upon their creation, when nothing else existed, Ilúvatar taught the Ainur the art of 'Music', which becomes their life and work. So the Void (as Tolkien refers to the universe outside Arda) becomes filled with the making of Music.
With each Ainu comprehending at first only those secondary ideas and themes most closely related to that primary idea-theme-thought of Ilúvatar's which pre-figured itself, these creative musical elaborations only gradually, through exposure to each other, become collaborative. The compositions revolve around themes given to each Ainu by Ilúvatar, which themes correspond respectively to those primary themes/concepts embodied in each Ainu - that indeed are each Ainu. Through listening and contemplation, an Ainu becomes aware of other Ainur, other musics, and the cultivation and adornment of other themes.
After a time of Music, Ilúvatar proposes a first 'great' design/theme/plan to all the Ainur at once: a symphony for His pleasure. He then charges them with the collective elaboration of this great design/plan/theme. They are to play themselves at composition.
While it is true that the Ainur are Ilúvatar's thoughts embodied, they each have a life of their own, and are expected to utilize their 'freedom' by cultivating the grand theme. Only in the future, at the 'end of days', will all the created beings of Ilúvatar fully understand not only the divinely provided concepts and themes they each personally embody, but how each relates to all the others and fits (as per Ilúvatar's intentions) in the entire greater scheme of existence.

*Melkor and the Great Music of the Ainur (paragraphs 5-8)*

1. Melkor is introduced, and the Ainur begin their Chorus. The first Ainu to be named in the histories, Melkor ('Arises in Might') is described as the most powerful of the Ainur and as knowing much of Ilúvatar's thoughts, including something of each of the primary themes that prefigure the other Ainur. He develops impatience with the schoolish process of thematic elaboration: like a precocious child, Melkor begins thinking of certain musical ideas and themes as being 'all his own', and he feels compelled to develop them apace. Melkor even harbours the desire to externally manifest his ideas (private ideas, as he thinks them) and to become a creator of beings himself. When the choir of the Ainur finally embark on the fully collaborative elaboration of Ilúvatar's grand plan, Melkor participates with all the others, yet he stands forth and inserts his very different thematic adornments, which disrupts the harmony. One reason his music is so different is that he's spent too much time 'alone,' so his themes appear to have a singular, rather than contextual, origin. The 'battle' in the choir of the Ainur rages back and forth with the 'pro-Ilúvatar' Music described as "deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came." (Silmarillion p 17). Melkor's music, on the other hand, is said to have been "loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated … And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice … " (Ibid.) But, despite Melkor's best efforts to mar and utterly overthrow the Great Music, his discordant music's "most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern." (Ibid. [Compare The Book of Lost Tales - Vol 1, "One was very great and deep and beautiful, but it was mingled with an unquenchable sorrow, while the other was now grown to unity and a system of its own, but was loud and vain and arrogant, braying triumphantly against the other as it thought to drown it, yet ever, as it essayed to clash most fearsomely, finding itself but in some manner supplementing or harmonizing with its rival." p 54. also compare The Lost Road "The other had grown now to a unity and system, yet an imperfect one, save insofar as derived still from the eldest theme of Ilúvatar…" p 158.])
2. The Great Music of the Ainur progresses thus: Ilúvatar introduces a First Theme to the choir of the Ainur and Melkor 'spoils' it, with some other Ainur starting to twist their music to Melkor's theme. Next, Ilúvatar imposes a Second Theme, and again Melkor corrupts it. Ilúvatar then proposes a Third Theme that Melkor attempts to corrupt through sheer force of volume of his own, but the power of the Third Theme is in the very subtlety that Melkor's lacks, and thus he never succeeds. In fact, the Music actually manages to incorporate some of Melkor's elements as a genuine improvement to itself. Still, despite neither Theme managing to gain the upper hand, so much power was poured by each side into their Music, that the halls of Ilúvatar shook, and The One decides to put an end to the strife with the conducting of "…one chord, deeper than the Abyss, higher than the Firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of Ilúvatar…" (Ibid.) After the Great Music stops, Ilúvatar promptly praises Melkor, chastises him, and then leaves the Ainur for time to their own thoughts.

*The Prelude: Water, Ulmo, the Music and Fate (paragraphs 9-17)*

1. Ilúvatar calls the Ainur together and 'shows' them a 'Vision'. The Vision is of what the transliteration of their collaborative Great Music into a material reality would be like. They are shown that the Music has a point, has a result and effect beyond its composition and singing: it amounts to no less than a highly detailed template commensurate with the entire history - beginning to end - of a material, 'physical' Universe that could exist inside 'time'. During this sneak-preview of the Birth, Life and Death of the Universe, the Ainur behold and contemplate all the aspects of material reality, which aspects are each associated with themes associated with particular Ainu. As the Ainur gaze out on this preview, Melkor sees now in detail how even his most private ideas and themes, even his most disruptive and destructive efforts, in the end serve only to fully elaborate Ilúvatar's master plan, design, theme and will. Melkor is shown that his private themes (as Melkor thought them) are in fact elements of that plan/design/will and "tributary to [its] glory." (Ibid. p 18)
2. Now the Third theme and the Children (Eldar and Edain) are discussed. The Ainur see in the Vision that there are things none of them remember composing, and things they perhaps remember composing but did not at the time fully understand. The Children of Ilúvatar are first mentioned here, the future home of the Children (Arda - 'the Realm', i.e. the Earth) is spotted, and some positively fascinating advice is given: don't read too much into the relative size of the Earth as compared to the entire Universe, or be overly impressed with the immensity of Space compared to, say, the delicacy and complexity of design in a mustard seed. Many of the Ainur, including Melkor, become enamoured of the Earth, though Melkor still wants to dominate it and the Children. The Ainur, looking out at the preview of all creation, come to believe that Water, of all the substances and energies of material reality, most completely echoes the collaborative elaboration that was the propounding and cultivating of Ilúvatar's entire creative plan (i.e., the Great Music of the Ainur.) The Ainur rejoice in Light, but at the sounds of the Sea they feel "a great unquiet." (Ibid, p 19. [Compare "…and for the great roaring of the ocean they {Ainur} were filled with longing." Book of Lost Tales, Vol 1, p 56.])
3. Ulmo is introduced. While Melkor is the first Ainu properly named, and the first Ainu to whom Ilúvatar directly speaks in the histories, Ulmo ('The Pourer' or 'The Rainer') is the second on both counts: right after the point is made that Water is the fullest echo of the Music of the Ainur, Ulmo is introduced as the Ainu most identified with that element, and the Ainu most educated in the matter of Music. Ulmo is the second Ainu to whom Ilúvatar specifically speaks in the histories when he points out to Ulmo that Water has from Melkor's meddling benefited beyond Ulmo's earlier conceptions. Melkor's attempts to disrupt with the use of fierce heat and severe cold do nothing to ruin Water (as Melkor must have hoped), but rather leave the World with the beauties of snow and frost and clouds and rain; this does no less than push Manwë and Ulmo more closely together. Ulmo, first of all the Ainur (Melkor included), has his words quoted in the histories when he says "'Truly, Water is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manwë, that he and I may make melodies for ever to thy delight!'" (Ibid.) And so Ulmo and Manwë are revealed as the two chief servants of Ilúvatar's intentions.

*Genesis (paragraphs 18-20)*

1. The Vision ends: Ilúvatar's sneak-preview is snatched away before any of the Ainur can fully see or comprehend the whole work of their music-made-into-substance. Because of this, and because of their nature as beings that must grow to an understanding of themselves in the context of the interplay of all creation, the Ainur know quite a bit of the past, present and future of the Universe and its inhabitants, yet they don't know everything (the later days, especially, are hidden from them). When the vision is taken away, the Ainur are restless, having fallen in love with the Universe, the Earth and the Children. Even Melkor thinks that he wants to be a benign part of their manifestation, though his tendencies must lead more toward dominance than cultivation.
2. Time begins. In the end (of the Beginning), Ilúvatar takes the entire musical work of the Ainur, including Melkor's destructive efforts, and makes it manifest, material, real, objective and existing as Eä ('It is', or 'Let it Be'), or what can be called the Universe. Many of the most powerful and influential Ainur enter into Eä, but they enter on condition that the life of the Universe, which has a beginning, middle and end corresponding to the Great Music of the Ainu, will be binding on them, and will become their lives as well. The Valar ('The Powers', the most powerful Ainur that enter into the Universe) enter into and became a part of the World at the very beginning of Time. But Melkor is amongst them.


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Tolkien got a lot from the Kalevala. His Elvish language is derived from Finnish. Here's the creation of the world for ya-- do google the words.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

It's odd how incredibly open to interpretation Tolkien can be. I always pictured those scenes from The Silmarillion with something closer to the music of the spheres, like Ligeti's Lux Aeturna.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

As if any of the music from this imagined time, if a parallel to the history of earth and its people, which the Tolkein is, would have any relation to or sound like Euro-centric music from 1000 a.c.e. or later.... All those choices, no matter how "Fine Art" the music is no matter how "classical" -- are from a very contemporary notion of film music -- which is gardly imaginative, imo.

If one wished to more accurately serve such a neo-myth, according to its referenced historic time-frame, conch shells, 'primitive' percussion, drum, rattle, shaken bundles of sticks, maybe reed or bone flutes, singing, clapping and stamping, and maybe not in a seven-note / 12 chromatic pitch scale, and likely not anything we would call harmony, or polyphony, would be a better call.

Hey, its very very early mankind time again, after all.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

PetrB said:


> As if any of the music from this imagined time, if a parallel to the history of earth and its people, which the Tolkein is, would have any relation to or sound like Euro-centric music from 1000 a.c.e. or later.... All those choices, no matter how "Fine Art" the music is no matter how "classical" -- are from a very contemporary notion of film music -- which is gardly imaginative, imo.
> 
> If one wished to more accurately serve such a neo-myth, according to its referenced historic time-frame, conch shells, 'primitive' percussion, drum, rattle, shaken bundles of sticks, maybe reed or bone flutes, singing, clapping and stamping, and maybe not in a seven-note / 12 chromatic pitch scale, and likely not anything we would call harmony, or polyphony, would be a better call.
> 
> Hey, its very very early mankind time again, after all.


By your own arguments it wouldn't be that either.
The creation of the Universe predates man by a few billions years.

It will just be a distant hum. Vibrations.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MagneticGhost said:


> By your own arguments it wouldn't be that either.
> The creation of the Universe predates man by a few billions years.
> 
> It will just be a distant hum. Vibrations.


and if happening in a vacuum, no sounds at all. (All those noisy dogfights with the fighter spacecraft in Star Wars, lol.)


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

PetrB said:


> and if happening in a vacuum, no sounds at all. (All those noisy dogfights with the fighter spacecraft in Star Wars, lol.)


That's why rationalize a fiction story is hard an I am more confortable imagining an Euro-centric music from 1000 a.c.e. or later for the creation :lol: also I think Tolkien imagined something like that too, since he was an euro and lived on the 20th century!


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## Kleinzeit (May 15, 2013)

Xenakis it is then.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Conch shells and rattles would definitely not fit the atmoshpere of the book which had nothing whatsoever to do with primitive man. Nor with science or mundane real history. It could scracely be more eurocentric.


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