|
6. Bilbo's Last Song 'At the Grey Havens'
Donald Swann (1923-94)
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)
Arranged by Cantabile
Leon Berger says in his introduction to The Road Goes Ever On [Harper Collins, 2002]: "The melody of Bilbo's Last Song was inspired by a traditional tune Donald heard on the Isle of Man, merged with a Cephallonian folksong he learned in wartime Greece. Donald writes in the Foreword that the poem was handed to him by Tolkien's secretary, Joy Hill, "Soon after the Professor's death". In fact it was at his funeral and Donald went home and composed the tune that very day. The song that accompanies Bilbo to his deathly paradise was sung at the commemoration of his dear friend Michael Flanders in 1975 and indeed at his own in 1994."
"Soon after the Professor's death, Joy Hill, who had for many years acted as Tolkien's secretary on behalf of his publishers, handed me Bilbo's Last Song. The poem was a farewell gift to her from the Professor and she was very moved by it. I understand the poem was written a good many years ago, and its appearance in the last year of Tolkien's life was but more evidence of the wealth of unpublished material, now being examined and edited by his son Christopher. The poem moved me, too, and I set it to music. As I did this, a host of impressions came back to me, chapters in my association with the world of Tolkien. [...] [Bilbo's Last Song] came into music instinctively as a solo-plus-chorus; ...soloist... joined by group. What group? The tune exists obviously as a solo melody. But my imagination is curiously full of choral voices, holding Bilbo's story within their harmonies. Yes, the soloist has in my mind now become Bilbo himself. It is the end of the Road, and Bilbo now craves companions... in performances I began to ask my own group of singers to pick up these 'outside voices' for me, while I sang Bilbo's solo. The voices at the door became real for me. [...]
"'Day is ended,' now says Bilbo, 'Journey long before me lies,' (still). 'But the sails are set and we are going to islands behind the sun. Rest is in sight.' As I read the poem I felt a surge of hope that ...the weather-driven mariner... would find a home. [...] Bilbo's Last Song is awash with sea metaphors. It was deeply moving to perform this piece at the Commemoration for Michael Flanders who loved the sea more than anything else. Could it be that at the very end Tolkien expressed another important streak in the English character, the love of the sea? Tolkien, whose name was Viking (he was proud of that), closes Bilbo's story with lines that the Vikings and British alike have repeated with infinite variations:
Lands there are to West of West,
Where night is quiet and sleep is rest."
DONALD SWANN
Thus Swann's Foreword ends.
We heartily recommend the whole cycle The Road Goes Ever On, which also includes a free CD of all 10 songs, with Swann himself singing Bilbo's Last Song. It is published by Harper Collins (ISBN 0-00-713655-2)
www.tolkien.co.uk
www.donaldswann.co.uk
Cantabile sang with the composer himself in this very song in 1984 in a concert at St Mary's Church, Barnes. The evening was organised by original King's Singers bass
and now broadcaster Brian Kay, who kindly wrote to us with this reminiscence: 'I certainly remember our evening together in Barnes -
was it really 21 years ago? Very good to hear Bilbo's Last Song again - remembered with great affection. One small detail - the last four
bars you refer to in your liner notes were actually harmonised not by Donald, but by me - and he acknowledges that fact on the published
edition of the song. I remember doing it specially for the memorial service for Michael Flanders, when Donald and I put the service
together with Michael's widow Claudia. It's all a LONG time ago already!' The most recent edition of The Road Goes Ever On,
which was our reference, glaringly omits Brian's credit, but it was the very fact that we had detected a particularly masterly hand in
the part-writing that led us to leave it unchanged!
|