Author Topic: The Tolkien Ensemble  (Read 325 times)

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Offline Angantyr

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The Tolkien Ensemble
« on: February 25, 2012, 04:21:08 pm »
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If you like me thoroughly enjoy Tolkien's books you may approve of this music, as befits something as monumental (to my best knowledge) the highest quality music made for any fantasy work. This is for the books what Howard Shore's music was for the movies.

From Wikipedia:
Quote
The Tolkien Ensemble (founded in 1995) is a Danish ensemble which aims to create "the world's first complete musical interpretation of the poems and songs from The Lord of the Rings". They published four CDs from 1997 to 2005, in which all the poems and songs of The Lord of the Rings are set to music. The project was approved by both the Tolkien family and HarperCollins Publishers. Queen Margrethe II of Denmark gave permission to use her illustrations in the CD layout.
Permanent members are Caspar Reiff and Peter Hall (composition, singing and guitar), Signe Asmussen (singing), Öyvind Ougaard (accordion), Katja Nielsen (double-bass), and Morten Ryelund Sørensen (conductor and violin).
The Ensemble has toured Europe in 2007, combining their own works with soundtrack pieces from Howard Shore's soundtrack to the film trilogy as well as live narration by Christopher Lee.

The style is Scandinavian folk music combined with classic and opera elements (including many performances in Qenya and Sindarin), and the mood and composition changes parallel with the books. Here's some samples (you can find most of it on Youtube):

Gandalf's Song of Lorien

The Road Goes Ever On

Galadriel's Song of Eldamar, I Sang of Leaves

The Old Walking Song

Lament for Boromir

Song Of Nimrodel

Christopher Lee sings Treebeard´s Song

Song of Beren and Luthien

Galadriels song of Eldamar, Ai! Laurië Lantar
 

Two of Queen Margrethe's illustrations, made by a young Tolkien reading queen in 1977:
(click to show/hide)
(click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 25, 2012, 04:38:42 pm by Angantyr »