Silmarillion - Ainulindale

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I beg pardon for joining in this discussion so belatedly, but as I was away from home when it began, I have only now been able to read the contributions so far. I've enjoyed the many good thoughts here!

I do like this part of the Sil complex, and I too enjoyed listening to the spoken version. As a musician, of course the connection between creation and music fascinates me most. C. S. Lewis' use of a similar idea for the creation of Narnia was mentioned only briefly, yet is the one reference that occurred to me first when I read the Ainulindalë. I went back to reread it now (in The Magician's Nephew) to compare the similaraties and differences.

Narnia has only one creative singer, Aslan.

A voice had begun to sing... Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he [Digory] almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard.

(Bêthberry, it's interesting that Lewis does use the feminine pronoun for the earth here...)

Then the stars join in the song:

...the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices...
The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. It you had seen or heard it... you would have felt certain that it was the stars themselves who were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing.

The sound of the music has definite similarities to the creative work which appears, more precisely defined here than in Tolkien's account:

Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were happening...
When you listened to his song you heard the things he was making up: when you looked round you, you saw them.

Plants, animals, all have their specific musical sounds.


This brings me to a great work of musical genius which concerns the Biblical creation story: Haydn's Creation oratorio. It is a work I know well and dearly love, especially for the picturesque nature of the instrumental passages, which are directly related to what is happening at that point in time - primordial chaos, rippling runs for water, a great roar for the lion, etc. (For those who are interested, there's more description here: Creation. Of course, it only musically describes creation, which is not taking place by means of music; still, it's wonderfully inspiring to hear a musical version of the creation story.

I actually like Tolkien's version, which introduces his idea of sub-creativity in having the Ainur actively involved in the process of creation. I think it's a clever way of reconciling the pantheistic myths with the One God of Judeo-Christian theology.