<<  -- 4 --  Gordon Rumson    MUSIC OF THE ELVISH WORLD

How to end a composition based on Tolkien? There might be a strong urge to end with some gallant march and triumphal pageant as the King (Arthur himself?) returns. And many other novels and films end in exactly this fashion. Tolkien is a much better artist than that and his novel ends with a gradual decrescendo into humble silence as the last of Middle Earth's high culture sails away to the Undying Lands.

But this will hardly do for a piece of music. Finales are almost always supposed to be bright and lively. If not the march of the returned King then what?

Allan Rae, in a stoke of genius, hits upon one of the most potent forces in The Lord of the Rings; one based upon Tolkien's wonderful creature the Ent, shepherd of the trees. These giant talking, walking trees, who think slowly and avoid hastiness, eventually turn the huge forces of nature upon the evil wizard Saruman. This vivid power becomes the motivation for the accumulation of great musical momentum and potency leading to an earthshaking conclusion.

It is time that this composition be performed, recorded and widely heard. Tolkien himself seems to have desired others to volunteer their own inventions to his world of Middle Earth and Allan Rae has made a prodigious contribution to The Lord of the Rings mythology.