'Elven Music in Our Times', Mira Sommer

[Nogrod]

This sure is something different and it might be something of just my imagination, but I have always thought this to be the real elvish music.

Rule of thumb concerning the link: at 0.40 it becomes really elvish (with the wind instrument coming in, a clarinet I presume), at about 1.40 it gets some air and finally from 2.10 onwards it starts to be what I think it should be - as elvish music. (Anouar Brahem is a Tunisian oud-player.)

I know this can be debated, but that's my idea of elvish music... making everything in Middle-Earth just Irish/ wanna-be Celtic or medieval catholic might go well with what we presume the prof. was as as a child of his times. But looking at his knowledge of different cultures I can't but think that we make a diservice to his legacy by limiting our imagination to just the Western tradition.

Had Tolkien heard of this...

[Bêthberry]

That's an interesting idea and link, Nogrod. (Celtic I don't think need be limited to elven music, but could also apply to the The Shire, especially with folk dances.)

I think I can catch a haunting sense of reverie in the music, but I'd be interested in hearing what it is in Brahem's music that makes you think of elven music.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

(Celtic I don't think need be limited to elven music, but could also apply to the The Shire, especially with folk dances.)

Well that's what I think as well. The celtic music (Irish, English), especially the folk-music, would be the hobbit stuff. But then the hobbits are no relatives to elves, so the elvish music shouldn't be the "upgareded" or "artsyfied" version of it (Enya-style, or the synthetizers and the pan-flute!) but to be "something completely different".

I think I can catch a haunting sense of reverie in the music, but I'd be interested in hearing what it is in Brahem's music that makes you think of elven music.

To me it's the kind of meditativeness, the eerie feeling you can't quite fathom what it is... like is it sad or happy (without the major-minor tonality the middle-Eastern music tends to have that odd effect on an European), it sounds to me something both incorporeal and fleshy at the same time; like passion and otherworldliness in the same package. Something I could imagine the elves feeling towards this reality... Am I making any sense?

[Faramir Jones]

You gave an interesting answer to Bêthberry's query here, Nogrod:

Originally Posted by Nogrod

To me it's the kind of meditativeness, the eerie feeling you can't quite fathom what it is... like is it sad or happy (without the major-minor tonality the middle-Eastern music tends to have that odd effect on an European), it sounds to me something both incorporeal and fleshy at the same time; like passion and otherworldliness in the same package. Something I could imagine the elves feeling towards this reality... Am I making any sense?

As I said before, each of us have our own definitions of what things, including music, we regard as 'elvish'. The music you linked to was nice; and I can see the point you're making; but I don't think anyone should presume that Tolkien would have liked it.

[Thinlómien]

I don't have anything to add, but in case you are interested, here is a recent and related thread:

Elves and Music

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

but I don't think anyone should presume that Tolkien would have liked it.

Well, that's the age old question...

But if the title is "Elven music in our times" I think we can look at it not only as a subject about which contemporary artists would the prof. have approved of, but also as how we could think of the elven music today with our wider perspectives.

If Mira Sommer is of the mind that Nightwish is okay then she is... but I'd bet the prof. would have chosen Anouar Brahem over Nightwish in an instant.

So where is the difference?

[Bêthberry]

I find this discussion fascinating!

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Well that's what I think as well. The celtic music (Irish, English), especially the folk-music, would be the hobbit stuff. But then the hobbits are no relatives to elves, so the elvish music shouldn't be the "upgareded" or "artsyfied" version of it (Enya-style, or the synthetizers and the pan-flute!) but to be "something completely different".

Nice to see you agree! Much as I enjoy many kinds of celtic music and English folk music, I think that Tolkien has clearly suggested Hobbits and Elves have different kinds of music. Or perhaps a better way to explain it is that their music functions differently in their cultures.

Hobbit music is best respresented by the festivities surrounding Bilbo's birthday party, with its "songs, dances, music, games, and, of course, food and drink" ("A Long Expected Party"). It's all a bit racuous, with "Noises of trumpets and horns, pipes and flutes, and other musical instruments. . . . Hundreds of musical crackers had been pulled." And in competition with Bilbo's speech there is:

Originally Posted by A Long Expected Party

some of the young Tooks and Brandybucks, supposing Uncle Bilbo to have finished (since he had plainly said all that was necessary), now got up an impromptu orchestra, and began a merry dance-tune. Master Everard Took and Miss Melilot Brandybuck got on a table and with bells in their hands began to dance the Springle-ring: a pretty dance, but rather vigorous.

Now "vigorous" cannot be said of elven music. In fact, I can't recall elves dancing at all. At least not physically.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

To me it's the kind of meditativeness, the eerie feeling you can't quite fathom what it is... like is it sad or happy (without the major-minor tonality the middle-Eastern music tends to have that odd effect on an European), it sounds to me something both incorporeal and fleshy at the same time; like passion and otherworldliness in the same package. Something I could imagine the elves feeling towards this reality... Am I making any sense?

I think the best way to 'make sense' of your description here is to recall the music in the Hall of Fire in Rivendell. The Hall of Fire is not the feasting or partying room, but a room for meditative purposes.

Originally Posted by Gandalf in Many Meetings

'This is the Hall of Fire,' said the wizard. 'Here you will hear many songs and tales--if you can keep awake. But except on high days it usually stands empty and quiet, and people come here who wish for peace, and thought. There is always a fire here, all the year round, but there is little other light.'

More extensive description belongs to Frodo's experience of the elven music. It's interesting that we don't read how elves respond to their music, but are introduced to it through Frodo's initiation.

Originally Posted by narrative, Many Meetings

At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above season of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. Swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.
There he wandered long in a dream of music that turned into running water, and then suddenly into a voice . . . .

That voice, when it concludes, is described as "chanting" rather than singing or reciting.

So I would think that Tolkien had in mind contemplative forms of music for elves. We might all have differing ideas of what contemplative music is, but it would be interesting to consider both western and eastern traditions. (After all, Sanskrit would not be an unknown language to philologists.)

[Gwathagor]

There's different kinds of Celtic music, too. The fast-paced Irish/Scottish folk music that we'd associate with Hobbits is really pretty recent stuff - but the older Celtic music, like sean nos and violin piobaireachd, has a different tone entirely, and could be seen as Elvish. They're much less...light, I guess? More formal, more deliberate, with a greater sense of age and significance. To me, piobaireachd and sean nos feel more ancient and elemental than other Celtic music, which is how I would imagine Elvish music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQy-WjdQPv4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8paj2hQHIo

[Bêthberry]

Thanks for posting those links, Gwathagor. They are beautiful and I enjoyed them very much.

Yet they don't work for me. I've done too much Scottish dancing and listened to too much music from Cape Breton (Nova Scotia) for me to be able to identify that with the elves. It is still primarily, to me, Celtic, the music of the race of men. I need something altogether more otherworldly, without the historical cultural signifiers, which is why I like Norgrod's suggestion of something beyond our usual musical repetoire.

There's a tradition of healing music in Japan, using the Zen bamboo flute (the Shakuhachi), which also to me sounds like something the elves would get into. But I don't imagine many Downers would second me on that.

[Gwathagor]

Since Elves are ultimately earth-bound creatures, perhaps otherworldly music doesn't fit them? Unless you just mean otherworldly in contrast to historical. (In which case I agree with you.)

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

In fact, I can't recall elves dancing at all. At least not physically.

Oh, but of course they did! Remember Luthien in the forest of Neldoreth?

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

There's a tradition of healing music in Japan, using the Zen bamboo flute (the Shakuhachi), which also to me sounds like something the elves would get into. But I don't imagine many Downers would second me on that.

I definitely would! I don't find it at all hard to imagine that Daeron or Tinfang Warble playing the flute could have sounded like this; or, if you'd like something a bit less cuddly and New-Agey, maybe that.
I also hear something Elvish in Chinese/Japanese compositions for the pipa, like e.g
Dance music for a festive evening in Rivendell
A tone poem commemorating the heroic struggles of the Noldor in the First Age
(titles invented by me)
What I find interesting about this kind of music is that one the one hand, it's very disciplined and rigorously elegant, while on the other hand (at least to European ears) it does have a weird, 'otherworldly' (...not going to discuss that in mid-sentence...) charm and, in some pieces (esp. the last one I linked) a wild, fairish abandon that really rocks. Very Elvish on both sides of the scale, as far as I'm concerned.

Gwath, I think I totally see where you're coming from. Keeping in tune with the idea of Middle-earth as calque on medieval/Dark Age Europe, it certainly makes sense to look for parallels to Elven music within the European musical tradition, whether Celtic or Gregorian.
But it just occurred to me that the culture of Middle-earth as described in the book is probably just as much a translation from the (imaginary) original as the English of the narrative representing the Westron of the 'real' Red Book. As The Prof himself said in LotR, Appendix F:

This linguistic procedure [i.e. representing the Rohirric language by Anglo-Saxon, Pw.] does not imply that the Rohirrim closely resembled the ancient English otherwise, in culture or art, in weapons or modes of warfare, except in a general way due to their circumstances [...]

We find non-European cultural influences in various parts of the Legendarium. Both Adûnaic and Khuzdûl were modelled on the Semitic language family. The Tengwar have a lot in common with Asian scripts like Devanagari or its descendants (in structural principle, if not in actual letter shapes). So why couldn't the 'original' music of the Elves have sounded like something from Tunisia or China?