I admit, I was suspicious when I first picked up this CD. An album of Tolkien-inspired music by a guy with a very convenient surname, released just in time to catch the waves of new LotR fans? It didn’t seem promising. The first time I looked at it, I passed it over. Mistake.
A year or three later, I was innocently listening to the radio when a song of this CD started playing. The song was “The Grey Havens”, and it brought tears to my eyes. The music was sensitively created and performed, and it perfectly captured the spirit of the book. It took all of thirty seconds for me to fall in love. I bought the CD.
“Music Inspired by Middle-earth” is an instrumental overview of The Lord of the Rings. The tour starts at the door of Bag End with “Hobbits from the Shire”. The track leads in with what sounds like a foretaste of the end of the story, with rich, heroic, soul-stirring music. It quickly falls back, though, to a simple, joyful, hobbity tune. By the end of this song, you know you’re in good hands.
The CD moves on through tracks like “The Road to Rivendell”, light-hearted questing music that had me up and dancing, and “Moria”, a piece that captures the darkness and mystery of the ancient dwelling place of the Dwarves, right down to the “drums in the deep.” Even “In the Land of Shadow” describes its subject perfectly: a wasteland, empty and barren, and terrifying. Put all together, the music of this album feels like the best soundtrack I’ve ever heard. Every song in this collection is magical; this is music that speaks to the heart.
“Music Inspired by Middle-earth” may sound like a soundtrack, but it’s certainly not a Howard Shore clone. David Arkenstone has a refreshingly original take on Tolkien-inspired music. His style adds a dash of the sixteenth century to more traditional orchestral sounds and the lyrical feel of Celtic music. The result is rich, beautiful, and free. Every piece on the album fits effortlessly into these themes, so that the whole CD feels like a unified journey through Middle-earth. “Music Inspired by Middle-earth” is a must-have for your CD collection; it’s available from Amazon.com.
by Nauma
