The Road Goes Ever On

This article is about the song cycle, book, and recording. For the individual songs of this name, see The Road Goes Ever On (song).
The Road Goes Ever On: a Song Cycle

First edition (Houghton Mifflin)
Author J. R. R. Tolkien (lyrics & main text)
Donald Swann (music)
Language English
Genre sheet music & commentary
Publisher Houghton Mifflin (USA)
George Allen & Unwin (UK)
Publication date
 31 October 1967 (USA)
14 March 1968 (UK)[1]
Media type print; in audio as Poems and Songs of Middle-earth
Preceded by The Tolkien Reader
Followed by Smith of Wootton Major

The Road Goes Ever On is a song cycle that has been published as sheet music and as an audio recording. The music was written by Donald Swann, and the words are taken from poems in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, especially The Lord of the Rings.

The title of this opus is taken from "The Road Goes Ever On", the first song in the collection. The songs form a song cycle, designed to fit together when played in sequence.

Musical and lyrical content

With Tolkien's approval, Donald Swann wrote the music for this song cycle, and much of the music resembles English traditional music or folk music. The sole exception is the Quenya song "Namárië," which was based on a tune by Tolkien himself and which has some affinities to Gregorian chant.

This book has been valued even by those uninterested in the music, since it helps Tolkien's readers to better understand the cultures of the various mythological beings presented in Middle-earth, and helps linguists analyse Tolkien's poetry. For example, it contains one of the longest samples of the language Quenya (in the song "Namárië"), as well as the Sindarin prayer "A Elbereth Gilthoniel" with grammatical explanations.

Also, in addition to the sheet music, the book includes an introduction that contains additional information about Middle-earth. Prior to the publication of The Silmarillion, this introduction was the only publicly available source for certain information about the First Age of Middle-earth.[2]

Publication history (book and audio recordings)

The first edition of The Road Goes Ever On: a Song Cycle was published on 31 October 1967, in the United States.[3]

An LP record of this song cycle was recorded on 12 June 1967, with Donald Swann on piano and William Elvin singing. Side one of this record consisted of Tolkien himself reading five poems from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. The first track on side two was Tolkien reading the Elvish prayer "A Elbereth Gilthoniel". The remainder of side two contained the song cycle performed by Swann and Elvin.[4] This LP record, entitled Poems and Songs of Middle Earth and released by Caedmon Records (TC 1231), is long out of print and very difficult to find.

The second edition of The Road Goes Ever On, published in 1978, added music for "Bilbo's Last Song." This song was also published separately.

The third edition, published in 1993, added music for "Lúthien Tinúviel" from The Silmarillion, which had earlier appeared in The Songs of Donald Swann: Volume I. The third edition of The Road Goes Ever On was packaged with a CD that duplicated the song cycle (but not Tolkien's readings) from the 1967 LP record. The CD also included two new recordings. The third edition was reprinted in hardcover in 2002 by Harper Collins (ISBN 0-00-713655-2); this had the same text and CD as the 1993 edition.

On 10 June 1995, the song cycle was performed in Rotterdam under the auspices of the Dutch Tolkien Society, by the baritone Jan Krediet together with the chamber choir EnSuite and Alexandra Swemer on the piano. A CD of this concert was published in a limited edition.

List of songs

The complete list of songs in this song-cycle is as follows:

  1. "The Road Goes Ever On". From The Lord of the Rings vol. 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 1 ("A Long-expected Party") and Chapter 3 ("Three is Company").
  2. "Upon the Hearth the Fire Is Red". From The Lord of the Rings vol. 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 3 ("Three is Company").
  3. "In the Willow-meads of Tasarinan". From The Lord of the Rings vol. 2, The Two Towers, Book 3, Chapter 4 ("Treebeard").
  4. "In Western Lands". From The Lord of the Rings vol. 3, The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 1 ("The Tower of Cirith Ungol").
  5. "Namárië". From The Lord of the Rings vol. 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 8 ("Farewell to Lórien").
  6. "I Sit beside the Fire". From The Lord of the Rings vol. 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 3 ("The Ring Goes South"), including the text of "A Elbereth Gilthoniel", from The Lord of the Rings vol. 1, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 1 ("Many Meetings").
  7. "Errantry". From The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

The following additional songs were added after the first edition, but do not form part of the song cycle itself:

  1. "Bilbo's Last Song". Given to Donald Swann after Tolkien's death. Only in the second and third editions of the book. On the CD but not the LP.
  2. "Lúthien Tinúviel". From The Silmarillion, Chapter 19 ("Of Beren and Lúthien"). Only in the third edition of the book. On the CD but not the LP.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, HarperCollins, 'Chronology' volume, pp.710 & 721; ISBN 978-261-10381-8
  2. ↑ Robert Foster (1971). A Guide to Middle-earth. Mirage Press.
  3. ↑ Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, HarperCollins, 'Chronology' volume p.710; ISBN 978-261-10381-8
  4. ↑ See the scans of the LP jacket here and here, as well as the list of tracks here.
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