"Tonality, Atonality and the Ainulindalë", Reuven Naveh

[Estelyn Telcontar]

This is one of my favourite chapters in the book, written from a musician's point of view. Naveh compares the structure of music with the narrative structure of the story, showing how the creation myth is set up like the sonata form in music. (For those who don't remember or didn't have to learn it, there is a basic explanation of the structure of sonata form.)

As a pianist, I know sonata form very well and found it fascinating to see the Ainulindalë as a musical structure. The themes of Ilúvatar, the Valar, and the dissonance of Melkor fit into the pattern surprisingly well. Exposition and development are plain to see, and the explanation for the missing of a recapitulation is very logical. Creation and resolution of tension, stable and unstable elements are all present in the narrative.

I don't know if Tolkien set up the tale in this form on purpose or if the similarities are on an instinctive, archetypal level. Since he was knowledgeable in many areas, though not a musician himself, there is really no way for us to say.

I will address other aspects of this chapter later on and hope that those of you who are reading the book will join in. For now, I would like to pass on an excellent quote that touches upon an area we are discussing in the "Speculative History" thread:

Originally Posted by Reuven Naveh

We do not and cannot know what the music sung by the Ainur sounds like. According to the Silmarillion, the Valar garbed themselves in bodies only when they came to Arda, and even these bodies do not represent their essence. 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.

[Aiwendil]

I just read this chapter and found it very interesting. I don't know that I quite agree with everything Naveh argues, but I do very much like his approach - trying to take what we are told of the Ainulindale and analyse it from a formal perspective. And of course, since the Ainulindale is in a way a sort of blueprint for the history of Arda, in doing so one also analyses the form of the whole narrative.

At first I didn't quite buy the analogy with sonata form. If you ask me, perhaps the most crucial aspect of sonata form is that it concludes with the recapitulation of the initial themes. As Naveh himself points out, there is no such recapitulation in the Ainulindale; the music proceeds through Iluvatar's first theme, then his second, then his third, and is then stopped.

But later Naveh does make an effort to better fit sonata form to the narrative by looking for a recapitulation. One possibility in particular, which he hints at but does not discuss at length, greatly appeals to me. That is: suppose the recapitulation is the second and greater music that is prophesied to come after the end of Arda. We are told that then Iluvatar's themes 'shall be played aright'. This description could just as well be applied to the recapitulation in sonata form, when both themes of the exposition are played in the 'right' key. Naveh points out that the final chord in the Ainulindale brings to mind the climax of a development section and a grand pause before the recapitulation. Granted, for Haydn or Mozart a grand pause that lasts until the end of the world would be going a bit far, but maybe for Iluvatar it's the equivalent of just a measure of 4/4 time.

One could take this a step further. In sonata form, the exposition is traditionally repeated - that is, played through twice before moving on to the development. Sometimes a repeat is also written for the whole development and recapitulation. There is no repeat in the song of the Ainur. But isn't the whole history of Arda a repitition, in a way, of their song? Naveh seems to lean toward considering the history of Arda the recapitulation, but it seems to me rather to be the repetition of the exposition (for the themes are not yet played 'aright').

There are still significant differences between this and the usual sonata form. Most notably, there appears to be no clear distinction between the exposition and the development. Rather, it's as though those two sections were combined; for the 'strife' introduced by Melkor (which is suggestive of a development section) does not wait until after Iluvatar's three themes are introduced but rather enters during the first theme and continues through the other two. So what we have is, perhaps, not quite sonata form but a kindred form that is similar in spirit if not in detail.

What is intriguing about this is that, considering the nature of the Ainulindale, in analysing its formal structure we are also analysing the formal structure of the whole of Arda's history. One could perhaps say:

Arda Unmarred = Exposition
Arda Marred = Development
Arda Remade = Recapitulation

[Estelyn Telcontar]

That's how I understand the recapitulation, Aiwendil - at the end of Arda. Yes, like any analogy, this one doesn't work on all points, but it does offer a fascinating new way to see the Ainulindalë. And even in music, the form is not always followed precisely, at least not in more advanced pieces. I think your summary of Arda unmarred, marred and remade to coincide with exposition, development and recapitulation is very concise and fitting.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Though I tend to believe that Tolkien did not intend the Ainulindale to have a literal sonata structure, I can easily see how the form might be considered analogous. But I also tend to disagree with the statement:

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.

Why not? The physical world is simply the Music made manifest; Iluvatar taught Ulmo the most about music, and his music is neither abstract nor celestial (as I recall, Ulmo taught music to the Elves at some point). Moreover, the Music was not played in the Void; it was played in the Timeless Halls, which are not the same thing. Yes, I do imagine that however it sounded in its original form, it would not have been played upon instruments as we know them; until their entry into Ea, physicality was apparently unknown to the Ainur. But then again, the instruments we do know were made in a world that IS the Music in physical form, and I don't know why they would be utterly alien to one another. My belief is that rather than being unlike any music ever known to humanity, the Ainulindale probably would be strangely familiar to ALL music ever known to humanity, for ultimately, it was the root, the blueprint of the world we know, and no doubt had in it all kinds of music possible within this world. Listening to the Music of the Ainur, I think we would hear an impossible -- yet utterly possible -- combining of all musical forms in one Master Work. And that Music is yet unfinished.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

That's how I understand the recapitulation, Aiwendil - at the end of Arda.

Definitely agreed, that's exactly what I thought as well. Actually right now I am about halfway through this chapter, and I have been wondering why the author didn't mention this obvious parallel (as he mentioned the exposition and development, and continued on saying that it makes sense that the Music didn't include the recapitulation, as it reflected the history of Arda to a certain point where the history is still going on - so I would have expected him to logically conclude with mentioning the Second Music, where Eru's themes will be "set right". I have been wondering whether he is not going to mention this later in the essay, but judging from your comments, it seems that he didn't. Most puzzling).

Otherwise, at least this far, I must say that sometimes I feel the parallels and comparisons the author draws a little bit forced at some points (referring of course to Das Rheingold - I must say that made me want to listen to that, as I have to confess, I am not so familiar with this particular part (for some reason I am most familiar with the end of Die Walküre - I am also infamous for having been caught several times singing/yelling "Loge, hör")). However, the author does not seem to be pressing it too much and the points are good overall. In any case, I like this chapter as well and it is enlightening nicely again from a musician's point of view, as somebody had mentioned here.

Anyway... I hope to find some time to slip in and write something more here when I finish reading this one.

[Guinevere]

For me, reading this chapter was really hard going !
I play an instrument myself, but am not familiar with all that analytical vocabulary.

Since the musical examples were also mostly unknown to me, I took the trouble of listening to them on Youtube. I dislike Wagner's music, and this prelude seems more an amorphous sound mass than a melody to me, but perhaps that is apt for representing the very beginning? And as for Schönberg: !

This reminds me of an experience I had some time ago at a concert of a symphony by Shostakovitch (actually too modern for my taste) The beginning was quite harmonious, but then dissonances started and got ever worse and louder (representing oncoming war, as far as I recall) I remember that I was struck by the thought that this was how Melkor's interference could have sounded.

[Formendacil]

I only just got my hands on a copy of Music in Middle-earth--spurred on, perhaps, by a post-Christmas trip to a bookstore that, while it did not include this particular book, reminded me of it, and made me brave my first trip into the Amazon to fetch it. Thanks to a seven or so hours of power outage (since restored) in a snowstorm, I finished the book I was working on before--an august tome about adult fans of LEGO --and made it two chapters into Music.

In reading through this thread, it strikes me as interesting that most of the comments made thus far have addressed the sonata analogy, which I found interesting, but do not have the musical expertise to address with words any deeper than "what he said made sense. to me."

However, no one seems to have made much comment about the topic (to me, more interesting) of Melkor's dissonance and the moral implications that are made by it being subordinated by consonance. Naveh seemed to touch just to the edge of this topic, when he suggested that the reason Melkor was so evil in Middle-earth and yet reconcilable to Eru in the Ainulindalë is that his dissonance was still resolved in the music, but through Free Will and the opportunity to "adorn the blank spaces" in the actual history of Arda. It seems to me that he didn't give quite enough weight in this respect to Eru's unilateral "no" in "no thing may be done in my despite."

However, as I said, that particular moment was a very briefly touched upon part of the essay, within the context of both the musical comparison to the sonata form, and the smaller context of Melkor's dissonance therein.