"Tonality, Atonality and the Ainulindalë", Reuven Naveh

[Nogrod]

I don't think I have realised this thread was going on back when it did as it looked totally new to me (I must have missied it back then). But it's a nice coincidence seeing this thread coming back now when I have just been modding a werewolf-game under more or less the same subject as the starting point.

I'm not going into details here about that game as you can check it from here if you wish. But I came there to think of the music of the Ainulindalë and wished to enter a piece of music Melkor would have webbed himself in the deeps of Utumno.

And of course the answer was dissonance.

The funny thing is that I find myself unsatisfied with the solution even if I think that looking at the prof's world it probably was the right idea.

The music I ended up using there is actually Krzysztof Penderecki's "St. Luke Passion" (1966), I used the parts O Crux Ave and In Pulverem Mortis*. But why I am myself dissatisfied with the choice is not because it is sacral music, but because it is really beautiful!

The dilemma of beauty and evil (especially in music) so familiar to the western tradition lurks it's head once more...



On another note.

Originally Posted by Reuven Naveh

The music of the Ainur is clearly supposed to be abstract, celestial music played in the Void and intended for Ilúvatar's ears; thus it certainly does not resemble any music known to humanity today or in any previous era.

Even if Ibrin disagrees, I could at least see how the idea might be backed (as one who has not read the essay yet). Tolkien probably was well educated with the classics and one of them for sure is the idea of celestial music or the "music of the spheres"; this pythagorean-platonic-boethian notion of music as the mathematical foundation of the cosmos (greek word "kosmos" = harmonic order), as the essence of all being. And that music, said the classics, was not to be heard. It was intellectually approachable, but not sensorily.

The musica humana or musica instrumentalis of Boethius, the music we could make or hear, were just pale shadows of the Real Music of the Spheres.

Looking at the Ainulindalë it's easy to see the connection to that classical idea - and it feels quite far-fetched to think someone could have actually heard the first Music of the World of Tolkien - but maybe Eru himself.

Which actually makes my attempt at representing Melkor's music in the game as futile (even if that was more of a idea to have fun than a serious undertaking)... or maybe it's just that: because Melkor's music was not perfect (Music as it is the "truth-beauty-goodness") so therefore it is audible...



* if you wish to listen to them, go to the game thread from the link above and pick posts #3 and #4 - there are links to the pieces.