Music of the Ainur from “The Silmarillion” for Flute Choir PDF

Description

Music of the Ainur from “The Silmarillion” for flute choir by Erika Skye Andres.

The music is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, alto, bass, and contrabass flute. If the ensemble does not have a contrabass flute, it should play that line on a bass flute, and the bass flute part can be played on a second alto flute (part included) if necessary if there is only one bass flute available. The bass and contrabass lines are written for instruments with B footjoints, but if that is not a possibility for the written low Bs then the top note in parenthesis or the optional 8va should be taken instead.  For an advanced-intermediate+ ensemble.

“The Silmarillion” is a book by J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”. It provides the backstory for these other books, describing much of the history and mythology of Middle Earth.

The beginning section of “The Silmarillion” is “The Ainulindalë” which describes the creation of Tolkien’s universe. It starts with the chapter called “The Music of the Ainur”. In the beginning is Ilúvatar (here represented by the bass flute) who is the One, the creator. The first beings he thought up were the Ainur (the rest of the flutes) who helped him with the creation of the world. They spoke to each other and created through music. At first they sang alone, but then Ilúvatar declared the first theme and the Ainur began to sing together in harmony.

However, soon Melkor (piccolo), the greatest in power and knowledge of the Ainur, wanted to create things of his own. His thoughts caused discord among the Ainur and their music faltered. But Ilúvatar just amended the theme to fit Melkor’s music. Then Melkor intervened again and Ilúvatar created a brand new theme, this one beautiful and much more sorrowful. And again Melkor tries to add his own music, but he begins to struggle to get it to contrast with the second theme as his thoughts almost seem to just enhance the music.

Finally, Ilúvatar stops the music with a tremendous chord. He then reveals that all of Melkor’s efforts have actually only contributed to make the music and its creations even more beautiful, for example creating clouds and snow from where just plain water existed before. All of the themes work together to make glorious music.

I wrote this piece because of the power of the story to show through music that all of the “bad” things in our lives can actually bring about good and from contrasts can come unity.

You get a downloadable PDF of the sheet music with the full score and parts.  For a printed copy, please see the Music of the Ainur Print page.