Conductor: Markus Huber
Performers: Vancouver
Now, usually when I make my way down to the city for a viewing of a piece by Beethoven, or Bach, or Brahms, or whomever, I am one of a select few youths amidst a horde of elderly folk, the reliable patrons that constitute the main support for local Classical music; what few young people there are are quite plainly, with their keen, upright demeanour, and with their impeccable taste in finer fashion, of a high and aristocratic breed. This past weekend, however, as I arrived at the ornate Orpheum Theatre, I found myself amongst a strange and eclectic crowd: dozens of young adults clustered in social groups, talking loudly, and showed little more care to their dress than if we were merely making an appearance at the cinema; once I even overheard some guy talking about how he had to ‘try to be sober for this’! Once the performance began, this motley and not entirely dignified audience tested my patience further by revealing a woeful want of proper etiquette; you can imagine my dismay at the applause between the opening tracks, never mind the movements! Finally, as a true testament to a serious absence of common culture, at the end of the show I was one of the few who adhered to the right tradition of a standing ovation: nearly everyone(even in the dress circle, which was of course the balcony which I graced with my presence) remained seated on their fat and lazy butts as the performers bowed and bowed again… Outrageous, simply outrageous…
(Note: I am not really this pretentious, but such a situation would be waste if I could not use it to indulge in my vanity for the pompous and the grand: I was infact only slightly mortified to find the seats surrounding me occupied by the nerdy instead of the senile.)
The Lord of the Rings Symphony immediately announces one of its primary characteristics in setting forth a low, brooding introduction, effectively creating an ominous tension in the anticipation of a long and exciting series of building up pitch and glorious climaxes. Soon after the prologue, however, a lush and verdant theme is invoked in the theme of a pastoral, introducing us for the first time to the melody that becomes inseparable from the adventurous, hopeful, almost whimsical nature of the hobbits. Similar to the way that a rainbow materializes after a passionate tempest, this pastoral eventually emerges after every major conflict, after every event where the signature battle theme inevitably overcomes the frenetic and industrial enemy of the East. What this essentially does is recreate a profound sense of peace that succeeds the war in which it was won: there is precious little in common between the hobbit pastoral theme played at the beginning and the rendition played at the close, and that is hardly because the notes have drastically changed, but because the trials of the heroes have imbued the final moments with that resolved feeling of having truly won something worth winning. If there were no war of the ring, in other words, the innocence and ‘peace’ of Hobbiton would of course be preserved, but then there would have been no adventure, no struggle to maintain personal virtue, and none of that lasting sense of achievement that winning a war, as much against yourself as against others, really brings; in short, there would not be much of a story at all, which is as much to say that there would not be any life at all.
What is probably the most important, the most fundamental part of how the symphony is constructed is the consistent use of the leitmotif, or a broad and essential theme that represents something and that recurs again and again in the entire composition; the leitmotif perpetually forces the audience to recall an earlier stage of the performance, and to reflect on what that presently means. It is obviously an integral component for many film soundtracks, where there is oftentimes a catchy central line that is repeated when the film reaches a particular climax; we would argue, however, that instead of drafting something that merely adds to some cinematic effect in a flashy, explosive, or melo-dramatic way, as other scores might do, Howard Shore has contrarily managed to create a soundtrack with a life of its own; and this is in large part thanks to the manner in which his own leitmotif differs from those of other composers. Although it is in some ways quite intangible, the average Lord of the Rings leitmotif (there are several) can be considered superior because of the cyclic nature of the whole composition: its ebb and flow has an almost translucent quality to it, drawing many conflicting themes together into a resounding clash of powers; Shore actually uses a number of the leitmotifs that we are well-acquainted with to play against each other to great, continuous thematic effect, resulting in a leitmotif built of leitmotifs! This is especially noteworthy due to how recognizable these are, which is crucial to their success; by way of an obvious example, the leitmotif of the battles between good and evil, where the powers of each are at their most absolute, and where we hear the familiar melodic phrasing of the West trading off forcefully with the rising clamour of the metallic East, represents a fundamental idea of the story, and we can probably understand this without reference to the films upon which the scene is based, something that cannot really be said for most cinematic soundtracks, or at least not to the same extent.
It is remarkable to notice how certain instruments and certain elements of the orchestral ensemble correlate to the different moods, or even to the different characters and peoples of the story. The men of Rohan, for example, share the same basic theme with their southern neighbours, the Kingdom of Gondor, and yet while for them the theme is played with a light violin, invoking a rustic, ‘folky’ aspect reminiscent of the Celtic glory years, the descendents of Numenor receive a proud line of brass, and a slight alteration of notes to make for a sad yet kingly defiance of all the monsters that both father Time and the dark lord Sauron can throw at them; this is how the composition brilliantly reveals the essential common ground between all types of Western men while also showing the very real differences between them. Similarly, in the first two movements of the symphony, we are greeted by two genuine mysteries: the first is the ancient fear and turmoil of the black riders, the dread ringwraiths known by an age long gone yet seen by contemporary eyes; and the second is the ancient light and hope presented by the Elven race, awesome to behold, which is all the more frightening for the relatively young hobbits. Shore succeeds in demonstrating these polar mysteries by depicting a semblance of their real natures whilst keeping some of it hidden in the guise of the arcane and the unknowable; the ringwraiths receive a blasting series of dark yet concordant chants with a trailing midnight brass that hints of an unseen power; and the elves shine luminously with a much lighter, much stranger chorus that is blessed with a lilting, almost oceanic quality. These are but two examples of how Howard Shore
There is a certain smallness in the soft and reserved notes of the hobbit pastoral: in its opening stages, as previously noted, it is quiet and innocent, but the persistent strain of the struggles to come consequently draw out a brave perseverance, a sure willingness to continue on in spite of the oppression that the bitter and conflicted world tries to impose on it. The real result is not a buckling of the knees, a step back or a whimper; the truth is that the one thing that follows every night, no matter how dark or how long, is a newly christened and resurrected dawn, and indeed the blacker the night the brighter the sun appears. And so, after the riotous storm has passed and the stars remain visible, if only due to some impossibly heroic final stand, the familiar notes of the hobbit pastoral return, but all the more visceral now because the shackles have been cast aside, unearthing a newer, stronger gem; the theme is tainted as well as strengthened by the scars of worldly experience and yet it still gestures to the purity whence it came and will go. The hobbits in this way are more alike to humanity than are the men of Gondor and Rohan, which seem distant in a remote and idealized past; it is harder for us to relate to the elite Tower Guard or a rider of the Rohirrim than it is to share in the experiences of a Peregrin Took or a Meriadoc Brandybuck; the tales of Frodo and Gollum are tales that are as human as any can be: two personalities that are largely homogeneous by nature but unfortunately separated by their good and evil intentions, which is precisely how we can distinguish good from evil in any human world. Finally, by way of conclusion, this hobbit pastoral, as we have called it, resembles a slender strand that appears to be fragile and malleable but actually grows stronger with every test, with every strain; it resultantly comes off as gentle, pure, and yet fundamentally stronger than the ring which it willingly bears.
It has been said to the point of becoming cliché, but we deem it best to keep saying it until it has become axiomatic: we live in a world that has to seek meaning more than ever since we no longer possess universal and authoritative meaning; we live in a world that seeks God more than ever since we have forgotten how to read His beautiful signs; this is all because we live in a world without myth, which provides all this. The work of Tolkien is today equated with the words ‘fantasy’, ‘fiction’, words that for all intents and purposes mean ‘unreal’; this is laughably ironic because the truly epic creations of Tolkien are actually far more real than the facts and figures of any historical event, of anything ‘nonfiction’. The symbolism involved in Middle-earth is the most profound artistic, mythical invention of the twentieth century, for the annals of that world describe not only the reality of its own dimension, but even more of our own. The legacy of the Lord of the Rings and the other books, of which this symphony is part, is as far as we are concerned the shining paradigm for anything that wishes to convey what the old human myths conveyed; the ‘fantasy’ books that line the shelves have failed as a whole, bringing their readers to an empty, illusory otherworld instead of inspiring them to find meaning and thereby transcending the emptiness of this world, which can, after all, be as vivid and as real as the village of the Hobbiton, or the River Anduin, or the White Tree herself…
Lay down
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across a distant shore
Your sweet and weary head
Night is falling
You have come to journey's end
Sleep now
And dream of the ones who came before
They are calling
From across a distant shore
Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
All of your fears will pass away
Safe in my arms
You're only sleeping
What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home
And all will turn
To silver-glass
A light on the water
All souls pass
Hope fades
Until the world of night
Through shadows' falling
Out of memory and time
Don't say
We have come now to the end
White shores are calling
You and I will meet again
And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping
What can you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come to carry you home
And all will turn
To silver-glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the West
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgcoBKWTW14
