Fimi, Dimitra (2007). "Tolkien's "'Celtic' type of legends": Merging Traditions". Tolkien Studies. 4: 51–71. doi: 10.1353/tks.2007.0015. S2CID 170176739. Sulka, Emily (2017). "J.R.R. Tolkien and the Music of Middle Earth". Channels. Centennial Library. 2 (1): 111–118. doi: 10.15385/jch.2017.2.1.6. ISSN 2474-2651. Bilbo's Last Song first appeared at the end of 1973, translated into Dutch by Max Schuchart for a limited edition of two thousand numbered posters that the publisher Het Spectrum distributed as corporate New Year's gifts. [13] In April 1974, Houghton Mifflin published the poem in the US as a poster decorated with a photograph of a river taken by Robert Strindberg. [14] [7] In September 1974, Allen & Unwin published the poem in the UK as a poster illustrated by Pauline Baynes. [7] Her painting depicts the hobbits Sam, Merry and Pippin looking down on the Grey Havens and watching Bilbo's ship sailing down the firth of Lune. [7]

Christina Scull& Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, HarperCollins, 'Chronology' volume p. 710; ISBN 978-0-618-39113-4 a b c d e Scull, Christina and Hammond, Wayne G.: The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, 2nd edition; Harper Collins, 2017; Vol. 1, pp. 762–771 Bilbo's Last Song [1974] • The Silmarillion [1977] • Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth [1980] The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays · Beowulf and the Critics · Tolkien On Fairy-stories · Joseph Horovitz in the Royal College of Music Journal says "A model of text-music-graphic book production".In Tony Palmer's film Wagner (1982–83), Oliver can be seen playing the part of conductor Hans Richter and conducting in the pit of Richard Wagner's theatre at Bayreuth. The scholar of humanities Brian Rosebury quotes Frodo's recollection to the other hobbits of Bilbo's thoughts on 'The Road': "He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'" Rosebury comments that the "homespun symbolism" here is plain enough, that "the Road stands for life, or rather for its possibilities, indeed probabilities, of adventure, commitment, and danger; for the fear of losing oneself, and the hope of homecoming". [2] He observes further that Middle-earth is distinctly "a world of roads", as seen in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both of which "begin and end at the door of Bag-End". [2] The Great Tales of Middle-earth ( The Children of Húrin [2007] • Beren and Lúthien [2017] • The Fall of Gondolin [2018])

Buja, Maureen (16 January 2019). "The Inspiration of Imagination – Frodo & Bilbo". Interlude. Archived from the original on 13 January 2020. The song is included in the BBC's 1981 radio version of The Lord of the Rings, with the music performed by Stephen Oliver. John Le Mesurier, who plays Bilbo [5] chants the first verse but not the second verse, and the third verse was sung by a boy in soprano. [ citation needed] BILBO’S LAST SONG is Tolkien’s lament for the world that was and, on a literal level, the passing of Bilbo from Middle-earth to the Undying Lands in the west. The brief piece — comprising of three stanzas, made up of four rhyming couplets apiece — is sung by Bilbo right before he is about to board the ship to Valinor. The Nature of Middle-earth [2021] • The Fall of Númenor and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth [2022] Illustration of the road by Kay Nielsen for the 1914 fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, whose title Tolkien uses in one of his walking songs for Aman, the desired other world. [1]The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún · The Fall of Arthur · The Story of Kullervo · The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun Oliver was born in Chester, the son of Charlotte Hester (Girdlestone), a religio… Read Full Bio ↴ Oliver was born in Chester, the son of Charlotte Hester (Girdlestone), a religious education adviser, and Osborne George Oliver, an electricity board official.[1] His maternal great-grandfather was William Boyd Carpenter, a Bishop of Ripon and a court chaplain to Queen Victoria.[1] Oliver was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School, Ardingly College and at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read music under Kenneth Leighton and Robert Sherlaw Johnson. His first opera, The Duchess of Malfi (1971), was staged while he was still at Oxford. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets. With Tolkien's approval, Donald Swann wrote the music for this song cycle, consisting of settings of some of Tolkien's poetry in The Lord of the Rings. Much of it resembles English traditional music or folk music. The sole exception is the Quenya song " Namárië", which was based on a tune by Tolkien himself; it has some affinities to Gregorian chant. In his foreword to the second edition, Swann explains that he performed the song cycle to Tolkien in Priscilla Tolkien's garden. Tolkien approved of the music except for "Namárië", and hummed its melody; Swann used that for the song. [3] Content [ edit ]

He was a good friend of Simon Callow who commissioned the piece Ricercare No. 4 for vocal quartet Cantabile. He also composed the score for the thirteen-hour radio dramatization of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1981. The work combined a main theme with many sub-themes, all composed within the English pastoral tradition. After Tolkien's death in 1973, Hill showed the poem to Donald Swann, who liked the poem so much that he set it to music and included it in the second edition of The Road Goes Ever On in 1978. [1] The poem was also illustrated by Pauline Baynes, and published as a poster on 26 November 1974. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954a). The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 9552942. The scholar of music Emily Sulka notes that the song cycle was created because Swann and his wife liked Tolkien's writings, and set six of the poems to music. Tolkien liked five of the settings, but proposed a melody similar to a Gregorian chant in place of the sixth, for Namárië. She notes too that Swann wanted them to be performed as a group without applause between the songs. In her view, the cycle has the theme of travel: the walking songs launch into an adventure to unknown lands, but returning home; "In the Willow-Meads of Tasarinan" speaks of Treebeard's travels in many lands, from spring to winter; "In Western Lands" in contrast begins with Sam in despondent mood, but ends with a feeling of hope. "I Sit Beside the Fire" portrays a traveller, Bilbo, reflecting on his journeys; it ends with a quotation of the melody of "The Road Goes Ever On", a poem that recurs (adapted to each context) in The Lord of the Rings. Sulka thus sees Tolkien and Swann using the poems and music to link the story of the novel with "the road always continuing, even when one's individual travel is finished". She finds Swann's account of Tolkien's poems "highly effective". [10]Bilbo's Last Song (At the Grey Havens) is a poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is sung by Bilbo Baggins at the Grey Havens as he is about to leave Middle-earth. Chronologically this places it at the very end of The Return of the King, the last volume of The Lord of the Rings, although it was written later than the books and never included in them. The Annotated Hobbit · The History of The Hobbit · The Nature of Middle-earth · The Fall of Númenor The song was included in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings (1981), with music by Stephen Oliver. The first verse is chanted by John Le Mesurier as Bilbo, the second omitted, and the third sung by a boy soprano. Harvey, Sir Paul: The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 4th edition; Oxford University Press, 1967; p. 53 Although the book can at first sight seem mostly useful by musicians (particularly piano and guitar players), it has been found to have a wider use than this, allowing readers to understand the cultures of the various mythological beings presented in Middle-earth better, and helping linguists analyse Tolkien's poetry. For example, it contains one of the longest samples of the language Quenya.

Bilbo's voyage to the Undying Lands is reminiscent of several other journeys in English literature. Scull and Hammond observe that Bilbo's Last Song is somewhat like Tennyson's Crossing the Bar (1889), a sixteen-line religious lyric (sharing some of Tolkien's poem's vocabulary) in which a sea voyage is a metaphor for a faithful death. [7] Other precursors of Tolkien's poem are the legend of the carrying of the wounded King Arthur to the magical isle of Avalon [9] and the quest of Reepicheep to sail to the holy country of the divine lion Aslan in Tolkien's friend C. S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. [10] Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien · J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend · J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator ·The History of Middle-earth ( The Book of Lost Tales Part One [1983] • The Book of Lost Tales Part Two [1984] • The Lays of Beleriand [1985] • The Shaping of Middle-earth: The Quenta, The Ambarkanta, and The Annals [1986] • The Lost Road and Other Writings [1987] • The Return of the Shadow: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part One [1988] • The Treason of Isengard: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Two [1989] • The War of the Ring: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Three [1990] • Sauron Defeated: The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Four [1992] • Morgoth's Ring: The Later Silmarillion, Part One: The Legends of Aman [1993] • The War of the Jewels: The Later Silmarillion, Part Two [1994] • The Peoples of Middle-earth [1996] • Index [2006]) diPaolo, Marc (2018). Fire and Snow: Climate Fiction from The Inklings to Game of Thrones. Albany: State University of New York Press. p.36. ISBN 978-1-4384-7045-0. OCLC 1045630002. The 1967 song-cycle (as released on LP and CD) is as follows. Keys are given, but Swann notes in the foreword to the third edition that transposition is acceptable.