Canto
Nevrast
May 1 2008, 2:29pm
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1. “Learn now the lore of living creatures!” The poem may adhere to a distinctly Rohirric form, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was composed by Men, does it? I, for one, could compose a poem in the form of e.e. cummings even though I'm not e.e. cummings. In fact, isn't it a typical exercise in poetry classes to produce poems using previously successful styles, techniques, etc.? I tend to think that this poem was composed first by Yavanna. Treebeard does say that he learned the poem "when I was young." With his having said this, I don't know how the poem could have been composed by anyone else? The first verse resounds of "history lesson," the sort of lesson which a mother would instill into her children to help them function in the world. The author of the poem also seems to refer to all creatures in a rather detached but knowledgable third-person manner.
2. “In the willow-meads of Tasarinan I walked in the Spring”
The conversation preceding this song is where Treebeard informs the hobbits that Fangorn was all one wood "From here...to the Mountains of Lune." Within this context, such a song, or poem, comes across more as a lament not just for days gone by but for the limited region within which Treebeard and the Ents now have to operate. Is Treebeard lamenting de-forestation? I think so.
5. “We come, we come with roll of drum”
I've always liked this song. I've always imagined it being performed by an army choir with the rolling snares, chimes, and a monstrous sound. As to your question about Melkor - I've always imagined the difference in the Music being something like the difference between classically composed music where the arrangement bears where tonal, harmonic sounds are organized are ordered time, using unvarying an tempo and time signature versus composed music which is atonal, unmelodic, and using changes in intensity, register and density of scoring as the motives to propel the music forward. It is the difference then between, say, Bach and Iannis Xenakis. To that end, I don't quite see the link between the martial march of the Ents and Melkor's own avant-garde aside from the strength and intensity of the song - but doesn't this strength resound from and for a different purpose? The Ents' song is organized and seemingly bears qualities of what many would consider properly composed music, whereas Melkor's song is belligerent and noisy. To quote the great American composer Morton Feldman, "Noise...does not travel on these distant seas of experience. It bores like granite into granite." and "Noise is a word of which the aural image is all too evasive."
(This post was edited by Chryses on May 1 2008, 2:29pm)
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