Music and The Lord of the Rings

[fajrdrako]

When we heard that The Lord of the Rings was going to be performed as a symphony - in Boston, I think - my friends and I wanted to go to it and despaired that we couldn't scrape up the money or the time.

Then we learned it was going to be in Ottawa in July, with Howard Shore himself, at the National Arts Centre. Thrilled, we got tickets.

Yesterday my friend Donna came over with a copy of the singer's score and lyrics. She is going to be singing in the chorus. She had been poring over the songs since she got them - I don't think she even could have slept last night - trying to learn which language each was in. There were a lot of choices - and since the whole thing is written for ease of singing, entirely phonetically, it's hard to tell what the languages are. I could tell that one was Quenya, another seemed to be Sindarin - it's further complicated by the fact that some of the words are names. Another bit seemed to be Dwarvish. One part was clearly the Black Speech of Mordor - it was the song of the One Ring, of course.

Another bit was, I'm sure, in Anglo-Sazon.

I have been listening mainly to opera for the past few weeks. Today, I'm listening to the soundtrack of the Return of the King, inspired by just seeing the music. I love it so much!

Comments

[lilithlotr.livejournal.com]

I'd kill to hear that again. I went to the World Premiere in Wellington, but because I didn't have the CD yet nor obviously had I seen the movie, I didn't get as much out of it as I might have. Then again, Viggo sang, so I'm glad I went!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'd kill to hear that again.

You could always visit! But we won't have Viggo, alas. (Eala.)