Soul Star Travelers of Elven World

Soul Star Travelers of Elven World, Magick of Tuatha de Danann

Introduction

In 1992, composer Carvin Knowles attended an exhibit at Oxford University, celebrating the J.R.R. Tolkien Centennial. There, on display, were many of Tolkien's handwritten manuscripts which appeared, at first, to be so many early mediaeval texts. In that moment, the concept of using musicological techniques to reconstruct the music of Tolkien's ancient worlds was born.
When The Fellowship began recording IN ELVEN LANDS on boxing day 1998, it was their intent to create the same kind of musicological experience you might have while listening to the historical re-creations of René Clemencic, Phillip Pickett, David Monroe, The Jay Consort and Sequentia. Those musicologists, in particular, performed music from ancient sources in an entertaining way, so as to bring those ancient texts to life, warts and all. Knowles was particularly drawn to the Carmina Burana, and even more so, ancient Christmas music, with it's carols that included smatterings of Old English, Old French and Latin, in a mish-mash of cultural cross-reference, pointing at a mix of tradition and a miraculous tale of religious and cultural importance.

At first, it was their intent to set Professor Tolkien's lyrics to music. In The Lord of the Rings alone, there are descriptions of some fifty songs, many with complete lyrics. But getting permission from the Tolkien Estate to set his lyrics to music is notoriously difficult. Their first attempts to get permission to record Tolkien's lyrics failed. In order to continue The Fellowship would need original lyrics that didn't infringe on Tolkien's copyrights.... but what they really needed was an ancient manuscript of Eldarin literature, a corrupt copy of a copy, just as Tolkien had described.


Tolkien the Translator

Throughout most of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, the author presents the idea that he was translating an ancient text from one of many ancient and lost languages. Recent studies of Tolkien's early papers from The University of Leeds would indicate that the idea dates from the beginning of his career and was part of the author's sense of humor. Considering his work translating The Book of Job for The Jerusalem Bible, and Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, it is clear that he had plenty of experience with ancient manuscripts.
In the Introduction and Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, Professor Tolkien claims that he translated the text from the Red Book of Westmarch. He speaks of multiple corrupt copies of the text and corrupt copies of copies. The Silmarillion makes reference to Tolkien's unfinished works The Lay of Leithian and The Lays of Beleriand as if they were well-known epic poems. The idea of the author translating these old myths and legends rather than inventing them himself permeates those stories, and leads many readers to forget that they are tales from the mind of a single man, taking them as real events.

But in a strange, academic way, those ancient manuscripts did exist in the form of Professor Tolkien's notes and unpublished tales, which outlined languages, histories and etymologies. In these notes, Tolkien composed epic romances to mimic the alliterative poetic style of the Saxons or the folk poetry of the English countryside. In every case, the good professor presents a fully-formed civilisation replete with annotations that would be the envy of any ancient civilisation, real or imagined.


The Tîr Im Psalter

Knowles writes "The concept of a 'lost manuscript' had been in my mind since that day in Oxford, back in 1992. It was reinforced by reading Tolkien's The Book of Lost Tales in the mid-90s. So I took the opportunity to create our ancient manuscript by writing new lyrics in Elvish." In the late 1990s, resources were limited to whatever books the band could find or order. There were no internet resources for Elvish languages at the time and the Etymologies hadn't been published...but for creating a "corrupt manuscript" those resources which they could find would be enough. 
A strong operative principal in Tolkien's linguistic work is the way languages change over time, as witnessed by his artificial evolution of Sindarin which he describes as "changing with the changefulness of the tongues of men." The new "manuscript" would explore this linguistic evolution, so that each lyric is in a different dialect from the last. In the composition of lyrics, they sometimes created compound-words from existing vocabulary. Before long, the ancient manuscript began to take shape.

The Tir Im Psalter is decribed as "the most recent Eldarin text and, without a doubt, the most corrupt." According to the album notes, "the book was handwritten by no less than four different scribes, using at least four different writing systems and three different languages. In places, it is illustrated with brightly coloured inks, paints and both silver and gold leaf. 

"There is evidence on the leather back cover that it was stored in a wooden box, where it was eventually water damaged, especially near the back pages of the book. In the 18th century, a book-moth destroyed four pages and damaged several others near the middle....The languages which appear in The Tir Im Psalter are Quenya, Sindarin and an early form of Anglo-Saxon. But the languages and their usage have caused great debate amongst linguistic scholars. Quenya was the ceremonial language of the Eldar, and while it uses the same letters as Sindarin, their spelling practices are quite different. Several of the Tir Im scribes mix the two in their texts. Helge Fauskanger wrote in his commentary that it is clear that some of the author(s) were not fluent in Quenya. He decribed some of their use of grammar as "idiosyncratic" and one hymn to Illúvatar as a kind of "Pidgin Quenya." Yet buried among the corrupt texts lies at least one complete, perfect example of the ceremonial language." 

Several portions of The Tir Im Psalter have been produced as actual manuscript and are printed as "colour plates" in the album notes.


Reconstruction Practices

Treating Professor Tolkien's works as historical sources, Knowles applied reconstructive practices to find out how the music of Middle-Earth might have sounded.

The process took into account Tolkien's descriptions of singing styles and musical instruments, as well as the natural rhythm of the languages and poetic metres he employed. In the literary context of many of Tolkien's songs, the performer is often described not as singing but as chanting the lyrics. Most ancient chant derives its rhythm from the words and poetic forms, of the lyrics. Since The Tir Im Psalter drew its poetic metres from Professor Tolkien's writings, the rhythms of those songs would naturally be the rhythms that belong to Tolkien's languages.

Tolkien's Elvish languages contain words used to describe poetic "mode," much like the "rhythmic modes" of 12th century Troubadour music, these modes provide a vital clue as to the accent used in Elvish languages, by telling us which syllables of each word are to be emphasized. The most simple explanation is that, like their mediæval counterparts, they divide poetic rhythms into long-short, short-long, long-short-short etc. By establishing the rhythm of these languages, The Fellowship used their "natural" rhythm to provide the rhythm for their musical setting.

When it comes to melodies, however, they needed to look to a figure from the ancient Classical world for help.


Pythagoras of Samos 
Pythagoras of Samos (c. 582 b.c.e. - c. 507 b.c.e.) was the father of arithmetic, geometry and music theory. Perhaps Pythagoras' greatest contributions to music theory were the Greek Modes (often referred to as the Church Modes because of their influence on Gregorian Chant). Named for different regions of the ancient Greek Empire, these Modes were a series scales, each with a different interval structure. The Major and Minor scales that are so common today were only two of those Modes. These Greek Modes allowed The Fellowship to explore a wide variety of melodic styles from the ancient world.
Most of the music for IN ELVEN LANDS uses a harmony system called organum. Organum emphasises the pythagorean "perfect" intervals of the fourth, fifth and octave. Organum takes three forms or "species;" parallel, oblique and contrary. Parallel organum is quite simply the perfect intervals moving together in block harmonies. Oblique organum begins with the harmony voice staying on one note, like a drone, until the distance between the harmonies becomes a perfect interval, at which point the voices remain parallel until it is time for them to converge, at the end of a phrase. Contrary organum is created by voices moving in opposite directions, landing on perfect intervals at the strong beats, or at the beginnings of important words. In practice, these three forms of organum were mixed liberally in a given work of music, however some styles of music would favour one "species" of organum over another, for example: Oblique organum was important in the composition of mediæval motets, while contrary organum appears in 13th century dance music. 

Just as Tolkien's works are strongly influenced by ancient literary forms, IN ELVEN LANDS was influenced by Troubador virelais, Notre Dame conducti, the hymns of Hildegard von Bingen, the Carmina Burana, Macedonian folk-dances, Gregorian Chant, Minnesinger melodies, English country-dance tunes and thirteenth-century polyphonic dances.

From the beginning of the project until recording began was just over six years. The process of recording for the "First Edition" release in 2006 took another seven years. 

The First Edition

The first release of IN ELVEN LANDS was in January 2006 on Voiceprint Records, an English record label dedicated to Progressive Rock. The album was an odd fit for the record company and the entire release relied upon an English rock star appearing on the album. The deal was made, but the process compromised the project's unique integrity. While illustrations from The Tir Im Psalter were used in the packaging, no mention of the manuscript was made. But even worse, the entire album was often attributed to the record label's rock star. In just over three years, the album went out of print.

The Second Edition

For the new second edition, released by Oglio Records on 5 November, 2012, The Fellowship have made a few changes to bring the project closer to their original intent, including four previously un-released tracks, and the return to older versions of many of the songs.

Most noticeably, the lineup of The Fellowship has changed. The rock star from the first release is nowhere to be found. Instead, South African countertenor Stephen Diaz has joined the lineup to sing Elechoi Mirnu Aglaron, and the previously un-released work EIo Elleth. Also joining the project is Maori singer Dennise Pehi who sings The Canticle to Elbereth Gilthóniel.

This edition also features a completely new work which is a collaboration with one of the foremost experts on the Elvish languages, Helge Kåre Fauskanger. In the midst of all the "corrupt" versions of Tolkien's languages, Fauskanger's lyrics show the delicate beauty of well-written, un-corrupted high Quenya, sung as a simple chant.
Also in the spirit of capturing the feeling of those raw, ancient manuscripts, The Fellowship have included a recording of J.R.R. Tolkien's chant Namárië, which recreates the author's first, "uncorrected" version that he recorded in 1952.

For the second edition of IN ELVEN LANDS, The Fellowship have re-recorded nearly half of the album. For those familiar with the original release, the second edition might appear to be an entirely new album. Perhaps in a very real way, that first edition was a corrupt copy of the original text, which now appears in the second edition. 

The Fellowship are an all-acoustic ensemble. Their performances on IN ELVEN LANDS feature cello, harp, hurdy-gurdy, flutes, gongs, lute and an astounding array of other ancient and modern instruments.



First conceived in 1992, IN ELVEN LANDS is a musicology experiment to find out how the music of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Middle-earth" may have sounded. Taking clues from descriptions of music and culture in "The Book of Lost Tales," "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of The Rings," The Fellowship began to reconstruct Tolkien's "ancient" cultures. After years of research, they began recording on Boxing Day of 1998, a journey that would take them more than seven years. The results of their labour, IN ELVEN LANDS is the fully realised music of an ancient, lost civilization. 

The Fellowship take a musicological approach to imagine how the ancient cultures described by J.R.R. Tolkien might have sounded, performing on an all-acoustic array of ancient and modern instruments that includes harp, lute, hurdy-gurdy, krumhorn and gong. Their international cast of singers deliver stunning performances using dialects of Sindarin, Quenya, Anglo-Saxon and Modern English. 

The Fellowship's songs are all drawn from aspects of J.R.R. Tolkien's myths of Middle-earth. The album title, "IN ELVEN LANDS" is taken from the lyrics of their song "Beware The Wolf": 

...let us ride before the break of day
through woven woods in Elven lands
to find the starry-jeweled hand...


This digitally remastered Second Edition features previously unreleased material and several entirely new performances, including J.R.R. Tolkien's original song "Namárië", plus an entirely new song with lyrics by the noted Tolkien linguist Helge Kåre Fauskanger. 

Digital album downloads include a fully illustrated 50-Page digital booklet with album notes and lyrics. 

DID YOU KNOW? In 2015, The Fellowship were called upon to provide ancient-music performances of Elvish and Dwarvish music on ancient instruments for the documentaries for Sir Peter Jackson's films The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" on the Extended Edition DVDs.
First conceived in 1992, In Elven Lands applies the techniques of forensic musicology to discover what the music of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Middle-earth" may have sounded like. After years of research, The Fellowship began recording at Christmas of 1998, a journey that would take them more than seven years.




Silmesse is the best example of Quenya, the ceremonial language of the Eldar, to be found in the Tir Im Psalter. It appears just below a verse to Elbereth Gilthóniel which was written in a Sindarin dialect. Both text and the Tengwar spelling for Silmesse are very close to earlier versions found in much older manuscripts and was probably carefully copied by the first of the Tir Im scribes. 

The poem its-self is is an affirmation of identity that poetically connects the singer with those first Elves who awoke to see the stars.




"When Dûrin Woke" is an instrumental setting inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Song of Dûrin," which the Dwarf Gimli sings in Moria in "The Fellowship of the Ring" at Balin's Tomb. Tolkien's lyrics speak of the awakening of the first Dwarves, the glory days of the Dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dûm and their sadness over the fall of the great mountain kingdom. 

"When Dûrin Woke" makes use of a mediaeval harmony system called organum, based on the music theory of Pythagoras of Samos. The Fellowship performs on corneto, krumhorn, oboe, harp, cello, bass clarinet, slide trumpet, sackbutt, bass drum and a variety of bells.




As recorded in the Akallabêth, one of the many names for ancient Númenor is "Atalantë," meaning "the downfallen." The parallels between Plato's lost island civilization and Numenor continue beyond just the name. Númenor was a land of advanced technology and great wealth. In honor of this lost kingdom, we present a piece with influences from throughout the ancient world. The metre of The Blood of Kings is seven beats per measure, recalling the Seven Stars in the royal arms of the Númenorian kings.




This Sindarin-language song is based on the metre and style of the various verses to Elbereth Gilthóniel found throughout J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." This arrangement recalls a procession of Elves through the forest, using a mediaeval Condutus form, to suggest Gildor's processions in "The Fellowship of the Ring," and "The Return of the King."




Elo Elleth was not included on the first release of In Elven Lands. It was composed in Sindarin, to suggest The Song of Beren and Luthien from The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter XI, A Knife in the Dark. The song was one of many on the subject, and the recording was left unfinished for many years. When Countertenor Stephen Diaz joined The Fellowship for the Second Edition release, the band thought the song would be perfect for his voice and recorded him in Auckland, New Zealand.




Tîr Im is a prayer for light in the darkness. This theme recurs throughout Eldarin poetry. The Vala Värda is also known as the Starkindler, a goddess-like figure who first set the stars into the heavens. She is better known by her Sindarin name, Elbereth Gilthóniel. 

Professor Tolkien's languages seem best-suited for sacred texts. Tîr Im makes much use of early Quenya vocabulary, the language which he described as "Elf Latin," to frame a prayer for light in the darkness. Throughout his tales, the lifting of light against the darkness is a recurring theme. Tîr Im was composed in 2002, using the style and structures of the music of the mediaeval composer Hildegard von Bingen.




This song began as a setting of Arwen Evenstar's Hymn to Elbereth Gilthóniel in The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter I, Many Meetings, but in order to avoid violating the Tolkien Estate's copyright, we have written new lyrics. This particular verse to Elbereth is written in the style and metre of those several verses in Sindarin that appear throughout The Lord of the Rings. 

In the same chapter as Arwen's Hymn to Elbereth Gilthóniel, Frodo describes the Elves' harmonies as an "interweaving of voices." This description is unmistakable as what we would call counterpoint. Singing in a round, or canon as it is technically known, is a simple form of counterpoint that goes back to ancient times. One of the earliest English songs to survive to this day is the round "Sumer is Icumen In" (12th or 13th century) which is still sung on Mayday at sunrise throughout England. In the repetition of our Verse to Elbereth Gilthóniel, the canon is taken up by a girls' choir (really it's just Caítlin Elisabeth recorded eight separate times).




SOURCE:

CREDITS

Produced by Carvin Knowles and Adam Pike

Executive Producer for the Second Edition: Carl Caprioglio - Oglio Records

THE FELLOWSHIP

Directed by 
Carvin Knowles

Carvin Knowles
Backing Vocals, Flutes, Lute, Gong, Harp, Oboe, Corneto, Slide Trumpet, Krumhorn, Recorder, French Horn, Trumpet

Caitlín Elisabeth
Vocals, Cello, Rebec

Patrick Delaney
Drums and Percussion, Backing Vocals

Adam Pike
Vocals, Backing Vocals, Percussion

Stephen Diaz
Vocals

Kate St. Píerre
Vocals

Dennise Pehi
Vocals

Ethan James
Hurdy Gurdy

David Uebersax
Sackbutt, Trombone

Eddie Freeman
12-String Guitar

Marta Victoria
Vocals, Bones

Stefan Kac
Tuba

Susan Skup
Vocals

Recorded at Sound Asylum in Pasadena, Icarus Music Studio in Lakewood, 
The Studio Near Fountain & Vine in Hollywood, 
and The Office in Pasadena

Engineered by Adam Pike, Marta Victoria, Eddie Freeman and Carvin Knowles
Additional vocal recording by Piper Payne, San Francisco 
and Carvin Knowles, High Street Studio, Auckland, New Zealand

Mixed by Adam Pike & Carvin Knowles at The Office in Pasadena

Digitally remastered by Adam Pike at The Office in Pasadena

Album design by Carvin Knowles

Website design by Carvin Knowles






Views: 190

Replies to This Discussion

In elven lands is cool album. Two tracks I really appreciate. Their version of Elbereth Gilthoniel however feels corrupt to me as they changed text. Somehow I felt discord even before I realised what was altered, I just knew that something is wrong with that song.

Copyrights should have never get in he way of creativity.

Although Silmesse and Blood of kings are Beautifull. As a whole I preffer Russian "Elven Oratory"

Yes Blood Kings has really nice tones,& Elven Oratory that's in my playlist also from years back.. its very beautiful,I like the harp in this kind of music..I can see why you like it too..

Elven oratory music resonates with me, at least first two albums, Third not that much, but it is amazing too and has some cool tracks.

I absolutely LOVE Carvin Knowles and The Fellowship - In Elven Lands!!  Excellent post!  Calantirniel

RSS

Multi Dimensional Reality

The world as you know it - all that you see, taste, feel and touch, comprises only about 5% of all of the stuff of the universe. The other 95% is what we have considered "nothing" or the "firmament"  or dark matter or the heavens or mystic Other Worlds. This 95% is multi-dimensional and consists of potential realities that may be perceived.

A single thought...a mere whisper, ...... barely upon a breeze that catches a spark... all is tinder before the firestorm... and yet.
ONLY that whisper
ONLY that thought
 the world is forever changed beyond the fears and dreams of cardboard men.
Freedom and change starts within:
It is encouraged by truth and courage of people who love
Built by the respect of true beings standing as one before each other.
Lets us cross every man made borders
without fear stare into eyes and hearts of all our brothers and sisters: within our words without shouting,or force to hold each to our truths; and let us without fear freely share what works...

Written By Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ.

©All Right Reserved

Latest Activity

Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ ኔጡ። commented on Morell Sunweaver's group If something exists, there is fun of it
1 hour ago
Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ ኔጡ። added a discussion to the group Psychics and Shamans
Thumbnail

The Celtic Faery Path of the Shaman

The Celtic Faery Path of the ShamanThe Celtic faery path of the shaman is based on the faery faith of Western Europe.This belief is rooted in knowing that everything–in this world and the next–is alive and possesses its own spirit or soul. It is not a new belief system, as animism has been around since long before the birth of Christ.At one time man believed that everything had a soul; the trees, the earth, rocks, animals, everything. This included the belief they could also communicate with…See More
1 hour ago
RichardtheRaelian left a comment for Danagonia
""Happy Birthday!""
yesterday
Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ ኔጡ።'s video was featured

Glass Beams - 'Mahal EP' (Full Live Performance)

Glass Beams perform all tracks from their 'Mahal' EP, out now on @ninjatune : https://glassbeams.lnk.to/mahalYo Subscribe: https://found.ee/gb-ys
Tuesday
Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ ኔጡ። liked Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ ኔጡ።'s video
Tuesday
Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ ኔጡ። posted a video
Tuesday
Ꮙℓἇ∂ἇ ኔጡ። replied to Morell Sunweaver's discussion Elves and Tolkien in the group Elves
"Thank-you for your thoughts Silver Flame,sadly Morell isnt in the site anymore to respond back on this post,but I will take the opportunity instead if thats ok with you, your right we do have to live in our own soulful nature,..the ancients…"
Tuesday
RichardtheRaelian posted a photo
Monday

© 2024   Created by Tara.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service