🎶Music for Middle Earth

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

[Note: This thread was originally titled "Music for Rohan?", and my OP reflects this. I changed the title because, as you can see, things quickly got out of, um, han! ]

Maybe -- At least I can imagine it at Meduseld. See what you think:

 

[Miguel]

2:10

 

[Desert Loon]

Wonderful! (Looks like she performed it in Norway?) Love the simplicity of voice and drum, and the joik influence.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Faroe Islands -- Faroese is descended from Old Norse.

Similar rugged terrain.

 

[Miguel]

The music of Ulmo.

 

[Desert Loon]

Faroe Islands -- Faroese is descended from Old Norse.

Similar rugged terrain.

That makes sense. Closer to Iceland too.

The whole album this is from would be good Rohan music, as would everything this group does.

This track is actually mislabeled on youtube: it's not really "Silder/Bingsjö stora langdans," it's really "Fafänglighet," the two titles got switched somehow.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

Not sure if they have any Rohan specific songs but Blind Guardian has whole albums that reference LOTR and Rush and Led Zeppelin (two of my favorite bands!) have quite a few songs as well.

Lots more listed here!

I like this one a lot:

 

[Miguel]

"Yet the Elves believe that Men are often a grief to Manwë, who knows most of the mind of Ilúvatar; for it seems to the Elves that Men resemble Melkor most of all the Ainur"

Melko sings to Eru?

Yes, i know it's wrongly spelled. Youtube erased the video (and the account) several times until i tried spelling it wrong, it worked xD Those lyrics got me thinking non the less.


Hmm:

Also:

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Of course, many bands have been inspired by Tolkien over the decades; music with ME references seemed to come almost weekly, back in the late 60's and early 70's. I think I've seen lists, though a lot gets left out.

Plus, there have been a number of classical composers who tried to evoke ME in their works, and there are the film soundtracks.

Different sorts of music will bring ME to mind to different people, for many reasons. But I was thinking specifically of music that might actually have been heard in ME; that Eivor piece happened to strike me as something at least close to possible -- as does the Slider song Desert Loon posted -- thanks for that! Also maybe Loreena Mckennitt (of whom I've been a fan for years, BTW).

Within those parameters, electric and electronic music would be out -- though, as I say, perfectly admissible in other contexts; After all, Games Workshop fans appear to think the universal music 40,000 years from now will be today's heavy metal!

With the exception of some of the anachronistic aspects of the Shire, the situation of ME seems mostly modeled on 5th/6th century Europe -- in fact, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was based on a description of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields in 451. We don't really have music from that period, not to mention the languages Tolkien spent much of his professional life trying to reconstruct.

Attempts at that kind of reconstruction for music are going on now; here's a sample:

Judgement on its success, or otherwise, will be subjective, to say the least, but they are trying to incorporate scanty evidence of Old or Proto-Germanic elements.

I daresay Tolkien, had he seen or heard anything like this, would have hated it, and (especially with all the "pagan" symbolism and gutteral sounds) would have immediately assigned it to Dunland, or some such place. Which, come to think of it, might be quite appropriate.

I have to say it's the only band I've heard of to have its own shieldwall!

 

[Miguel]

the situation of ME seems mostly modeled on 5th/6th century Europe -- in fact, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was based on a description of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields in 451. We don't really have music from that period, not to mention the languages Tolkien spent much of his professional life trying to reconstruct.

A quick note:

Look at the region's name south-west of Cataluña.

-If you take the "N" out of "Lindon", the word "Lindo" means "cute", "pretty" in Castilian . Both words are pronounced exactly the same.

-If you take the "Q" out of Quenta and add a "C", the word "cuenta" means "account", "telling; which is also what it means in Quenya. It is also pronounced the same.

I think there might be many more references, but i can't recall right now.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

That's interesting, but the battle I referred to, also known as the Battle of Chalons, took place in Gaul:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Catalaunian_Plains

The Roman General Aetius, with the help of the Visigoths, led by Theoden's model Theodoric (and who, like him , was killed), defeated Attila's Huns and their Alan allies.

Contemporary descriptions of the Huns clearly contributed to the picture of Orcs; I suppose the subject Alans served as models for the rather vaguely sketched "Easterlings".

 

[Miguel]

I like this as 1st age evil men:

This as the servants that Morgoth left with the Atani in Hildórien:

And this as Thalion:

 

[Elthir]

Love that performance S-e S. Thanks!

Love this one too!

And lately I've been learning my runes from Heilung

 

[CirdanLinweilin]

Maybe -- At least I can imagine it at Meduseld. See what you think:

Not Rohan, but this sounds like music that would be after the time of Middle-earth, (at least 1-3, maybe 1-5) ages. The discrepancies in the songs and lyrics is meant to represent the lyrics, verses, and ballads degrading over time after being discover after who knows how long.

-In Elven Lands, The Fellowship, "Verse to Elbereth Gilthoniel


CL

 

[Desert Loon]

Not sure if they have any Rohan specific songs but Blind Guardian has whole albums that reference LOTR and Rush and Led Zeppelin (two of my favorite bands!) have quite a few songs as well.

Oh yeah, I've been a Rush fan for years and years. I used to listen to Caress of Steel constantly, including "The Necromancer," though when I first heard it, having previously heard "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" it bothered me that By-Tor was presented as sympathetic in Necromancer - it didn't occur to me to think that he somehow "saw the light" as Neil Peart explained in an interview later.

"Rivendell" off of Fly By Night is a favorite of my daughter's. We also listen to Loreena often in our house.

Coming back around to the question of music that could have been played in Rohan, there's an ensemble called Sequentia that specializes in early music, and I have one of their records that consists of Old Norse poetry with medieval instruments and an attempt to reconstruct or at least invent melodies that they might have sung to in Viking age Iceland at least (and it's not too great a leap from then back into Beowulf times). They use the ancient pronunciation too. Let's see if I can find a link to the record . . . ah, here:

https://sequentia.org/recordings/recording23.html

Listening to this it's easy to imagine you're sitting in a place like Meduseld.

It's good to see all the recommendations here, they'll keep me occupied for a while checking them out.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Here's an old thread on the subject of ME references in pop/rock:

http://thetolkien.forum/index.php?threads/led-zeppelin-references-to-lotr-in-songs.1937/

I have some from Sequentia, but not that one -- I'll have to look for it.

Speaking of looking for things, in searching, searching, searching, I came across this -- I must apologize for posting it -- wrong period, wrong language; but it was too lovely to pass up. IIRC, Tolkien did like Italian, though -- too bad he couldn't fit in a culture that would have used a derivative!

Oni Wytars does record some "Medieval" music too, though, so you can look.

 

[Miguel]

Northern peninsula Celtic music, i can hear Beren going: "Tinúviel!, oh Tinúviel!" xD

 

[Desert Loon]

Lovely! I like Luar na Lubre, and I'm always glad to hear more old Italian music. Some years ago I introduced a recording of the medieval Sephardic song "El Rey de Francia" to my daughter by telling her it was an elven song.

 

[Elthir]

To add to Desert Loon's excellent recommendation of Edda, Sequentia also has a double CD The Rhinegold Curse.

And of course, Ben Bagby's Beowulf.

I've seen Mr. Bagby a number of times live, including his Beowulf (twice), and performing in Sequentia's Edda.

Awesome

 

[Miguel]

Omg. The man speaks and sings like he really is something out of Arda. Legit.