This is the second part of a series of commentaries (or composer’s notes if you will) on my upcoming release “The Silmarillion Symphony.” You may wish to start with part one before reading this post.
The Beginning of Days Suite is the longest of the compositions from the upcoming album. It has three movements and they all illustrate parts of the book from the chapter ”Of the Beginning of Days” and from “Of the Coming of the Elves.”
For the purpose of brevity, I will only focus on the first movement - The Beginning of Days.
The chapter “Of the Beginning of Days” deals with the First War of the Valar, where the Valar loyal to Iluvatar struggled with Melkor as they were forming Arda (the earth). In the piece, there is plenty of variety in terms of themes offered. The Valar create and mold the earth, peacefully and gracefully (spoiler: lots of harp involved). Melkor gets jealous, and goes around destroying things, or “marring” as Tolkien puts it. Eventually this erupts into a full scale battle, orchestrated with fighting double bass and low brass themes.
As with many themes in Tolkien - those on the side of good often win out - but at great cost. In this case, the Valar do indeed succeed in keeping the earth together, but Arda is marred. They are also unable to overcome Melkor. I illustrate this musically by ending the movement by dropping a set time feel as things fall into grief and loss.
I hope you enjoyed this short excerpt from my thoughts on The Silmarillion Symphony. There is more news on the symphony's pending release. Due to some production restraints, I've had to move the release back a bit. The project is going to mastering no later than November 11th, and hopefully I'll have the hard copies by the 21st.
Be sure to visit www.silmarillionsymphony.com to PRE-ORDER the upcoming album!
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