OF ROOTS AND BEGINNINGS
I’ve written over the years about how my journey into Middle-earth began, quite unexpectedly, of an autumn evening in 2001.
I was a young college student back then, in a little city in India, watching MTV after classes, when Enya’s May It Be came on. I was drawn in by the music, the imagery, and the world I glimpsed in that little 3.5 minute video.
I could scarcely have imagined then how far that moment would take me.
A quarter of a century later, here I was in Sydney, listening to the same music that had stirred me all those years back, performed live now by The Metropolitan Orchestra, the Sydney Philharmonia Choir, the Sydney Children’s Choir, and a wonderful ensemble of vocal soloists.
As I sat in the darkened concert hall, I found myself travelling somewhere I hadn’t expected. Not merely back to the familiar lands of Middle-earth, but through the years of my own life, to people and places, friendships and memories, some now distant in both space and time.
For all my years loving these films and their music, the opportunity to experience The Lord of the Rings score performed live had somehow always eluded me. I had attended other Tolkien-inspired productions over the years of course, but never one in which Howard Shore’s magnificent original score was performed live to the very film for which it was written.
And so, despite knowing every familiar melody, every musical passage and lyric, and every moment of the film by heart, this was, in a very real sense for me, a first encounter with The Fellowship of the Ring all over again.
MEMORIES IN MUSIC
Howard Shore’s score has always been, for me, the soul of Peter Jackson’s films.
As most of us can attest from our own experiences, the music doesn’t merely accompany the story. It imparts a layer of something ancient and beautiful passing slowly through time, and beyond time.
There was the gentle, pastoral melody of the Shire, the melancholic strains of Rivendell, the ancient dread of Khazad-dûm, the haunting enchantment of Lothlórien, the alluring notes of the Ring, and so many moments.
Even after all these years, the music retained its power to thrill.
And, on this occasion, to remind…
As the Fellowship emerged from the Mines of Moria, broken by Gandalf’s Fall, I found myself recalling a conversation from many years ago with Aivale Cole, whose extraordinary voice gave that scene its heartbreaking lament in the original film. I had interviewed Aivale for TheOneRing.net as part of a series of interviews celebrating the music of the films. She had spoken of her excitement and nervousness recording with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and shared wonderful recollections of working with Howard Shore and Peter Jackson.
I remembered conversing with Miriam Stockley, whose ethereal voice accompanied the Fellowship into Lothlórien; with Hilary Summers, who sang the deeply moving Gilraen’s Song (featured in the Extended Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring); and with Sheila Chandra, whose haunting performance of The Breath of Life in The Two Towers gave voice to Arwen’s longing for Aragorn.
And then there was a most lovely interview with Plan 9 (David Donaldson, Stephen Roche, and Janet Roddick) who together with David Long, gave Middle-earth so much of its organic character. From the joyous festivities of Bilbo’s birthday party (remember the music for Frodo’s “chicken dance”?) to the haunting Elvish voices heard as Frodo and Sam watch the Wood-elves departing Middle-earth (featured in the Extended Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring), their compositions helped make Tolkien’s imaginary world feel wonderfully real.
Each of these lovely musicians had shared something deeply personal of their creative process behind the music that millions have since come to love.
I was fascinated by their accounts of how they imagined the musical traditions of Middle-earth’s different peoples, and how they each sought to give the different cultures their own distinctive musical identities.
CHANCE MEETINGS
My thoughts also wandered back to New York Comic Con in 2012, where I had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting Howard Shore himself.
I remember how special it felt to meet the composer whose music had accompanied so much of my own journey into Middle-earth.
I was too shy to speak to Howard Shore, though. As I shook his hand, I had the distinct impression he expected me to say something, but all I could manage was a sheepish smile. I couldn’t think of anything to say that would adequately express what his music had meant to me over the years. I can only hope, even after all these years, that my smile conveyed at least something.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Doug Adams that day.
Doug had spent years painstakingly exploring and documenting the score’s intricate themes, musical architecture, and lyrics.
His book The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films, now in its 16th year of publication, illuminates the extraordinary musical world Shore created. It is still, to me, a masterpiece in itself, and in my opinion, a must-have for any fan of these films and its music, whether serious or casual.
My many conversations and encounters with these remarkable people had become part of my own history with Middle-earth, just as surely as the films themselves had.
And, back then, we were celebrating the 10th anniversary of the films.
Now, somehow, we are celebrating their 25th!
Where did all those years go?
THE VOICES THAT CARRY US HOME
Returning to the The Fellowship of the Ring In Concert, a special word must be said for the singers who gave voice to Middle-earth that evening.
While the various choirs lent Shore’s music its grandeur, the solo performances brought a human intimacy to the immensity of it all.
I have always found something particularly poignant about hearing In Dreams sung by a child.
I remember listening to the original recording by Edward Ross all those years ago, when he himself was just a boy. His voice, so pure and wistful, became inseparable from the ending of The Fellowship of the Ring and from my memories of discovering the films.
I found myself wondering where Edward Ross might be now, what paths his life has taken, and whether he knows how many people still carry that song, and his voice, in their memories?
Hearing another young voice sing those familiar notes a quarter of a century later had me pondering… here was this young singer before me in a concert hall, who certainly hadn’t even been born when the original film was released. And yet, there she stood, a little person on a grand stage, giving voice to the same song that had resonated with an entire generation before her.
Perhaps that is one of the loveliest things about the timelessness of these scores… the voices change, the years pass, but the music remains, finding new singers and new listeners, laden with memories as people pass through it.
TheOneRing.net: A FELLOWSHIP OF OUR OWN
The music brought back more than memories of just the films. It reminded me of my years spent on TheOneRing.net since the early 2000s.
Of late nights spent on its forums having long conversations about Tolkien’s works, and friendships forged with people across the world whom I might never have otherwise met.
Of attending New York Comic Con with fellow TORn staffers, sharing in the excitement of being surrounded by people who understood why these stories mattered so deeply to us.
Of the laughter, the discussions, the arguments, the conventions, the anticipation of new films, and the wonderful sense of belonging to a community drawn together by a love of Middle-earth that never needed to be explained.
That is what TheOneRing.net has always meant to me. A fellowship, bound not by a quest, but by the stories we love and the friendships we’ve made along the way.
Some of those friendships have endured. Others belong to different chapters of life, separated now by distance, circumstance, or simply the passage of time. And yet, all are always just a melody away.
How fortunate we are that, every now and then, a familiar melody can bring us home to one another again, even if only in spirit!
ROADS GO EVER ON…
There were so many moments when the music transported me back to a younger version of myself – of ourselves – when so much of life still lay ahead of us, full of possibilities we could scarcely have imagined. And here we are now, living in that very future, even if it isn’t exactly how we imagined it to be.
I wonder if perhaps, as we grow older, we become more conscious of the distance between the people we once were, the people we imagined ourselves to be, and the people we actually have become?
When Enya’s May It Be finally filled the hall, I thought again of that autumn evening in 2001, of the young teen watching MTV, unaware that a song was about to open a door to an extraordinary world.
How strange to think that he and I are, in some ways, still the same person. Small and insignificant, and content to be so.
So much has changed since then. Homes, countries, friendships. The very shape of life itself.
And yet some things have remained remarkably constant. The music. The stories. The memories.
As the final notes of the music faded, I found myself reflecting on how many roads we all must have travelled since the first time we heard these scores.
Tolkien wrote it almost a century ago, and I have learned now that it is a simple truth indeed… roads do go ever on.
