Music in Tolkien's Work and Beyond ed. by Julian Eilmann and Friedhelm Schneidewind (review)

This is the third anthology of articles about Tolkien and music. Together with its two predecessors (Music in Middle-earth, edited by Heidi Steimel and Friedhelm Schneidewind, Walking Tree, 2010; and Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien, edited by Bradford Lee Eden, McFarland, 2010), it demonstrates that music was vital to Tolkien's imagination. All three anthologies venture outside of the topic of music as strictly defined, into lyrics on their own as poetry, and into Tolkien's special interest of the music—if it may be so called—of language as studied in philology. The "and beyond" of this book's title, however, alludes to articles discussing other authors in comparison with Tolkien, and to articles covering music inspired by Tolkien.

The most prominent theme of Music in Tolkien's Work and Beyond, however, is the central topic of the pervasiveness of music and musical references in Tolkien's work. This is the theme of some of the bestwritten as well as the most persuasive articles in the anthology. In what might as well serve as the keynote entry, though it is the sixth essay in the book, Elizabeth A. Whittingham delivers a sweeping declaration that music is essential to Tolkien's legendarium, completely imbued into the story. Her examples are primarily from the Silmarillion papers, particularly The Lays of Beleriand.

Two more surveys with equally impressive sweep, despite narrower topical focus, come from Jennifer Rogers with a thorough ethnomusicological analysis of some incidental song verses in The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers, and from Angela P. Nicholas, who digs out an impressive number of musical references in the life of Aragorn, both as a singer and as the focus of music around him, particularly in his role as king. These two essays, though placed together, are separated from Whittingham's to which they are most closely related.

Several other authors pursue the same theme on a smaller scale, again scattered through the book: Sabine Frambach with a quick survey of the music of Tolkien's evil characters, who she concludes "almost exclusively use functional music" (339); John Holmes, who sets out to "canvas the references to harps" in Tolkien's works (361); and Bradford Lee Eden, who itemizes, but does not analyze, the perhaps surprising number of musical references in recently published work by Tolkien, from The Story of Kullervo to the book form of A Secret Vice.

Two other remarkable articles follow the theme of pervasiveness in a tighter focus. Renée Vink traces the shift from a concentration on dance in "The Tale of Tinúviel" from The Book of Lost Tales to one on song in the same story retold in "The Lay of Leithian," evincing the increasing influence of the "Ainulindalë" on Tolkien's imagination. Petra Zimmermann writes strikingly on Tolkien's use of silence in his fiction, both in general and specifically as an element in performances of songs and poetry. She suggests that the heightened emphasis on sounds in a silent environment gives the reader cues for how to hear the story in the mind's ear. This essay could be tied to one elsewhere in the book by Allan Turner on Tolkien's use of music to mark a shift from the ordinary to the wondrous, as with the arrival of Gildor in The Lord of the Rings or several moments in Smith of Wootton Major.

In her essay on Aragorn, Angela P. Nicholas discusses the Lament for Boromir ("Through Rohan over fen and field where the long grass grows," TT, III, i, 19–20) mostly in terms of Aragorn's personal reaction to Boromir's death and its place in the quest. Three other articles raise the particular question of fictional plausibility: could Aragorn and Legolas have improvised such a complex lyric? Nancy Martsch's article addresses the general topic of...