Tolkien Society Oxonmoot 2009
Part 3
The rather modest and unprepossessing entrance to the delights of Lady Margaret Hall
© Iolanthe
Part 3
Hobbit Music and How to Be Like Sam
Do I need to tell you that lunch was utterly splendid? There were so many goodies on offer at the buffet that I came down with a bad case of Pile-your-plate-like-the-Eiffel-Tower-syndrome, where smoked salmon sandwiches were surrounded by Round Curried Thingies, topped Long Meaty-Sticky Thingies on Sticks, and fringed with Chocolate-Moussey-Cuppy Thingies. After that I needed a long walk and headed out for an Ent Hunt along the River Cherwell, graciously letting Marbretherese and Jonick out on their own into the University Parks to look for the Two and a Half Trees (planted by the Tolkien Society in his memory) ‘Go out of the entrance, turn left, follow the River, walk SW at a 45 degree angle from Tolkien’s bench, don’t get lost, have you got a clean hankie?, don’t talk to strangers….’
There – utterly guideless and thrown out alone on the pitiless breast of this cruel world - they had their own adventures which Marbretherese will certainly fill you in on.
Meanwhile I took a lot of photos of the River and spotted a distant herd of cows which instantly made me think of Marbretherese…
Punting along the Cherwell. No cows.
© Iolanthe
I was due to meet them again at Casper Reiff’s talk: ‘The Hobbit as a Musical’ but they didn’t appear. Had they been captured by Old Man Willow? Been seduced away by the cows? Run away from Home? I wasn’t too worried – I was soon miles away entranced by Caspar’s wonderful music. Caspar (as some of you will probably know) is part of the Tolkien Ensemble, who have set all of Tolkien’s poems and songs to some terrific music, helped by Christopher Lee’s narrations (worth buying the discs for on their own). Caspar is now writing an entire musical based on
The Hobbit. This will be very unlike the Ensemble music – it’s much more of a piece with a consistent musical style running through it. It’s still in the draft stage and his presentation was designed to get feedback while he continues to work on the words and music. For the first time (for Caspar) the words are his and not all Tolkien’s. As he pointed out to us – there is a need (in a musical) for a song at Thorin’s death where it would have been inappropriate for Tolkien to place one in the book. Caspar described it as the classical Musical situation of ‘I’m dying so I’m singing’. Of course!
He presented the musical with excerpts from a ‘workshop concert’ which had been given in Denmark (I think) with Christopher Lee providing some narration. For a ‘workshop’ it was pretty darned good and the audience looked as though they had a fantastic time. Caspar has had the blessing of the Tolkien Estate who partly suggested the project to him while he’d already started thinking around the idea. He thought that the ‘Lord of the Rings’ musical was much too ‘predictable’ and he wanted to play around with
The Hobbit a bit more so the audience had some surprises… pretty intriguing!
The first song we heard was a splendid and lively argument between Gandalf and the Dwarves at Bag End. The dwarves are unsure about their Thief and Gandalf eventually brings them around to the point where they think they have the best thief that ever lived. It was great fun. He also played for us what he hopes will be the most successful song in the musical – a moving ballad sung by Bilbo called ‘Here I stand alone’. Like Bilbo he hopes that the song will ‘stand alone’, but my favourite was a song sung by a lady elf in Rivendell (the only woman in the musical and one more than we get in the actual book!). It was truly beautiful. This was followed by a lively argument between Bilbo and Thorin: ‘May your beard grow ever longer’ (which I really enjoyed as it consisted of insults framed by dwarvish courtesy) and Thorin’s deathbed song which was richly orchestrated and very moving. It was all rounded off by Christopher Lee telling us (on the video) that the story was only just beginning and leading us on to the Party Tree and some amazingly catchy Hobbit dance music. Quite honestly it was very hard to sit still.
You can see video highlights of the songs we were lucky enough to enjoy in full if you clicky-clicky on the picture here:
© Youtube/Caspar Reiff
They are still being revised so these aren’t finished versions, but what fun the finished musical will be!
There was probably a very interesting discussion afterwards that I would have liked to have heard, but I wanted to dash out to make sure of a seat at Charles Bressler’s talk on ‘Becoming Like Sam’ which (after his wonderful talk last year on Tolkien’s aphorisms) I didn’t want to miss under any circumstances. I managed to finally catch up with Marbretherese and Jonick who now seemed to be getting on very well without my vast experience of all things Lady Margaret. But it turned out that they hadn’t been able to find the Two and a Half Trees after all, probably because they look like all the other trees… . Ha!
Charles Bressler’s talk was, without doubt, the highlight of Oxonmoot for me. I confess I was very tearful at the end. He is a warm and engaging speaker who speaks about the profounder things of Tolkien, openly and straight from his heart. His love and admiration for Sam, as an example of how to live, was the main theme of his talk. He pointed out that the authors we like best are not just those of the intellect, but of the heart, so that after we put down the book, something stays with us. He argued (and who would disagree with him?) that Tolkien provides a ‘vision for life, for loving, and for believing’. That what is ‘personal’ with Tolkien and between his characters, is also ‘universal’, providing us with an object for contemplation. He asked us to think about why we liked people, why they became friends. He pinpointed it as living near them, becoming familiar with them and seeing similarities to ourselves in them, meaning that friendships can cross social and cultural barriers. Sam and Frodo’s friendship transcends those barriers and is friendship on a level where they have earned the right to speak. That is, to tell the truth plainly to each other, to be extremely personal and to be vulnerable with each other. Most importantly it allows them to give to each other.
Bressler then talked about the classical definitions of friendship that Tolkien would have been familiar with, such as those found in Augustine and Cicero. These friendships don’t depend on social status, but they do depend on shared goals and common beliefs. Sam carrying Frodo at Mount Doom would be the greatest example of this kind of friendship, with their common goal of destroying the Ring. Bressler sees Sam as embodying all the classical Cardinal Virtues (Wisdom, Temperance, Courage and Justice) and invited the audience to come up with examples from LotR (of which there were so many… fill in your own favourites here!) and also embodying all the theological virtues (Faith, Hope and Love). Unlike the Cardinal Virtues, which can be learned, these are seen as heavenly virtues which are divinely gifted to the human soul by God. Bressler, intriguingly, made the statement that an argument can be made from the text of LotR for Iluvatar giving these to Sam, where the passive voice intervenes with phrases about things that are ‘meant to be’ but he’s saving that for a future talk (I’ll be there!).
Bressler then asked ‘Why is Sam is doing what he is doing?’ and boiled it down to selflessness, forbearance, loyalty and service and admitted that he wants, in his life, to be like Sam. He said there were ‘moments when he wants to be Aragorn, and moments when he wants to be Sauron…’ but really he wants to be like Sam. He seeks out ways he can be a Sam to his friends in real life. This is when it became very personal for Marbrethese, Jonick and I because we have had a Sam in our lives and there is no greater friendship and no luckier person than one who has a ‘Sam’ at his side. Bressler then made the interesting point that Sam believes in Frodo more than Frodo believes in Frodo. He said that life was exciting for Sam - seeing the elves, Rivendell, seeing the Olipahaunt – and that Sam had a life full of wonder and good. He finished with the statement that when they close his coffin lid he hopes, really hopes that he will be seen by everyone there as a Sam, and that ‘In a world that says there’s only ‘I’… there’s Sam. In a world that says there’s no Iluvatar… there’s Sam. In a world that says there’s no Truth… there’s Sam’.
This is a good place to finish today’s instalment, with something profound to ponder.
Tall poplar trees in the grounds, leading to the river.
© Iolanthe
, but we're not really complaining - we were lucky to have a bathroom as many there were sharing. 
. Time's running out but at least you'll have longer to look forward to it 
.
she must be the joint author of a book on Royal Doulton. There's certainly a book called 
!