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Monthly Archives: May 2019

Pieces of Eight!

29 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Literary History, Maps, Villains

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Blackbeard, Captain George North, Captain Kidd, coins, Doubloon, Edward Teach, Elizabeth I, Hernan Cortez, Inca, Long John Silver, Mexico, Muppet Treasure Island, N.C. Wyeth, Parrot, Pieces of Eight, Pirates, Privateer, reales, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Newton, San Luis Potosi, Sir Francis Drake, South America, Spain, Treasure Island, Young Folks

As ever, dear readers, welcome.

In 1881-1882, a new serial appeared in the British children’s newspaper, Young Folks.  Its author was Captain George North and the story was entitled, “Treasure Island or, the Mutiny of the Hispaniola”.  In 1883, Cassell and Company published this in book form

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as Treasure Island, and its author’s name was right below the title:  Robert Louis Stevenson.

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The story had come about because Stevenson had seen his stepson, Lloyd, drawing a map.  Stevenson joined him and that map became the map.

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The book became a number of movies over the years, including one by the Muppets (1996),

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but our favorite is that made by the Disney studio in 1950.

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This version has Robert Newton as Long John Silver, the man whose twitches and vocal mannerisms have been passed down now as “the way pirates talk” (including—and especially on—“International Talk Like a Pirate Day”, September 19).

MBDTRIS EC018

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You’ll notice that parrot (as far as we know, there’s no “International Talk Like a Parrot Day”, unfortunately) on his shoulder.  We can trace this back to the original novel and identify him as “Captain Flint”, Silver’s pet.  Here he is in a picture from our favorite illustrated version, that of NC Wyeth, from 1911.

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(If you’d like your own early edition, with Wyeth’s illustrations—not his only pirate pictures, by the way—here’s a LINK to the 1913 printing.)

Among other parrotings, Captain Flint is given to calling “pieces of eight!” and, when we were little, we wondered “pieces of eight what?” and perhaps you did, too.  The story begins much earlier than the novel—about 1500.  It starts with this early Spanish silver coin called a “real” (14th century).

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About 1500, a new coin appeared, worth 8 reales,

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and this is a “piece of eight”.

It shouldn’t be confused with another coin Captain Flint might have exclaimed over, the doubloon.

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The doubloon (from Spanish  “doblon”—“double”) was gold, rather than silver, and was probably called “double” because it was worth two of the coins below, an escudo.

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Spanish silver supplies mushroomed after 1519, when a small expedition, led by Hernan Cortez (1485-1547)

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landed on the coast of Mexico.  The expedition was armed with European weapons and armor of the period.

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As they marched inland, they found an empire, with a capital set in the middle of a lake, with public buildings made of stone blocks.

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They also found that the local warriors were still living in the Neolithic Era and, though they were fierce, were no match for modern (early 16th-century) weapons.

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Farther south, other Spanish invaders found the same thing along the west coast of South America,

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and soon, they had enslaved the local populations and turned them to work in the silver mines, like that at San Luis Potosi, in Mexico.

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Their labor then produced vast quantities of precious metal, which was left in bars, or turned into coins—pieces of eight and others.  This was loaded on ships and sent back to Spain.

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Such riches didn’t escape the attention of Spain’s enemies, however, and soon such ships had to travel in convoys, with merchant ships being shepherded by warships.

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This didn’t prevent attacks completely, a famous leader of those attacks being Sir Francis Drake, from the days of Elizabeth I.

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Although the Spanish referred to Drake as a “pirate”, while England was at war with Spain (as it was for much of Drake’s later lifetime), to the English he was a “privateer”—a private naval commander holding a kind of license from Elizabeth I, which permitted him to attack enemy shipping at will (and to share the profits with the Queen’s government).  Because he wasn’t one of the government’s official officers, this created a kind of grey area, one which many sailors from western nations, as late as the Napoleonic wars, would take advantage of, slipping between government service and something which, even with that license, could look like piracy.  Such men included the notorious, like Captain Kidd

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(of whom there is no portrait—we inserted this just for fun)

and Edward Teach, “Blackbeard”.

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(His beard isn’t really on fire, by the way.  He wove bits of matchcord—used to fire ships’ guns and touch off handgrenades—into it to give himself a fiendish aspect.)

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Rather than sharing it with governments, both men were said to have taken much of their loot ashore and buried it in now-lost locations—

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which brings us back to the map and Captain Flint squawking, “Pieces of eight!”

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D31MWE Long John Silver. Image shot 1954. Exact date unknown.

Thanks, as always, for reading, and definitely

MTCIDC (matey!)

CD

ps

The most famous of Blackbeard’s ships, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, has been located off the coast of North Carolina, here in the US.  Here’s a LINK to the site which talks all about the discovery and the ongoing archaeology.

It’s a Long Way…

22 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth

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American Civil War, Aulos, Crusaders, Great War, Greek, Hoplites, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Marching song, May 4th, Palestine Song, Rohirrim, Roman songs, songs, Star Wars, Star Wars Day, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Walter von der Vogelweide

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Perhaps because we’re writing this on May the 4th, we’ve been in a musical mood—after all, there’s such a catchy tune involved with it—

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And we wondered if there were words to it?  Certainly soldiers have been singing songs seemingly forever.  Greek hoplites sang a hymn to Apollo before battle.

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(They are accompanied by an aulos player here.  “Aulos” is sometimes mistranslated “flute”, but it’s not a kind of recorder.  Instead, it’s a member of the oboe family.)

Julius Caesar’s (100-44bc)

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soldiers, marching behind his chariot when he celebrated his triumph (formal victory parade) in Rome

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sang an unprintable song about his sex life.  There’s only a fragment surviving and we’ll print it here—but in Latin—a typical Victorian thing to do.

“Urbani, servate uxores: moechum calvom adducimus.
Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.”

(Here’s a LINK which we would recommend about reconstructing Roman soldiers’ songs.)

There’s a stirring piece by Walter von der Vogelweide (c.1170-c.1230),

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called the “Palestine Song”, supposedly sung by a crusader after reaching the Holy Land.  We can imagine later Crusaders singing it as they marched

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As in the case of the Caesar fragment, however, we won’t print the text—we aren’t enthusiastic about crusades, especially the medieval ones, believing them to have been the drawn-out attempt at a massive landgrab of places already long-inhabited.

On long, monotonous marches, we imagine soldiers always sang.  The American Civil War was fought over hundreds of miles and, with the rare exception when trains could be used,

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soldiers walked everywhere.

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That being the case, it’s no wonder that so many of their favorite songs had the word “marching” in the title.

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Marching Through Georgia Music and Lyrics

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(And that last one’s chorus begins, “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching…”)

Russian soldiers appear to have had designated regimental singers, who, when called, hurried up to the front of the column and broke into choruses to keep up the men’s spirits on long journeys.

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(We apologize that these Russians aren’t singing—but this is, in fact, a film of the last czar, Nicholas II, reviewing his guards just before the Great War, so, at least, they’re marching.)

Which brings us to the Great War and our own officer in it, JRRT.

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Certainly, the soldiers in his battalion (13th, Lancashire Fusiliers)

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would have sung—here are two popular favorites—

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There were other songs, too, but not cheery at all, and officers were instructed to discourage their singing.  The words of one, sung to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne”,  expressed the terrible monotonous nature of trench warfare, being only “We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here”.  A second, “Hangin’ On the Old Barbed Wire”, as it was called, had a mocking little tune, like something from a music hall, but described the whereabouts of soldiers who, for various reasons, were out of the firing line—until it came to the last verse:

“If you want the old battalion,

I know where they are, I know where they are, I know where they are

If you want to find the old battalion, I know where they are,

They’re hanging on the old barbed wire,

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.“

 

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Here’s a LINK, if you’d like to hear an abbreviated version.  In this , the group, Chumbawamba, uses an alternative line, “If you want to find the private”, but both versions are grim—and we presume that Tolkien knew all of these songs and many more, some, like the song about Julius Caesar, completely unprintable!

(Our image, by the way, is of a wiring party from the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers.  Those curly things, called “screw pickets”,  you see resting on the front man’s right shoulder are the stakes which were twisted into the ground and then barbed wire was run through them and wrapped around them.   Here’s  an early US WW2 picture of a soldier working with the upper loops of one.)

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As we’ve often discussed before, things from JRRT’s real life sometimes have a way of seeping into his fiction, and we can certainly see it here.

Although they’ve been silent on the march, on their way to the attack, the Rohirrim, for example, are far from that:

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“And then all of the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.”  (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 5, “The Ride of the Rohirrim”)

Unfortunately, we have no idea what their songs might have been like—perhaps they would have resembled Theoden’s cry to the Rohirrim:

“Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!

Fell deeds awake:  fire and slaughter!

Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,

A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!

Ride now, ride now!  Ride to Gondor!”

Oddly, we do have two of what might be called Goblin marching songs,

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both from The Hobbit.  The first is sung right after the dwarves are captured in a cave in which they’ve taken shelter in the Misty Mountains.

“Clap! Snap! the black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!

Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! my lad!

Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!”

(Chapter Four, “Over Hill and Under Hill”)

The second appears two chapters later, when the company is trapped in the pines and the Goblins and Wargs are below:

“Burn, burn tree and fern!
Shrivel and scorch! A fizzling torch
To light the night for our delight
Ya hey!

Bake and toast ’em, fry and roast ’em!
till beards blaze, and eyes glaze;
till hair smells and skins crack,
fat melts, and bones black
in cinders lie
beneath the sky!
So dwarves shall die,
and light the night for our delight,
Ya hey!
Ya-harri-hey!
Ya hoy!”

(Chapter Six, “Out of the Frying-pan Into the Fire”)

We notice that the opening of the second bears a certain resemblance to another song sung in a wild location—by wild people:

“First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

All
Double, double, toil and trouble; (10)
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

(Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1)

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In  The Lord of the Rings, JRRT blurs Goblins and orcs and, considering that we almost always see orcs as moving in companies, we’ll see them that way, too, marching across Rohan or on the stone roads of Mordor, and we’d like to imagine that they, too, have songs to make the way shorter.  But what do they sing about?  And, judging by the Goblin’s songs, do we want to know?

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Thanks, as always, for reading and

MTCIDC

CD

 

ps

Another Great War soldiers’ song was more melancholy than sarcastic, although it still suggested marching,

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and, when you read the chorus, you’ll see why.

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Here’s a LINK of it sung by a famous tenor of that time, John McCormack (1884-1945) and here are soldiers at a happier moment and we hope that Tolkien sometimes saw them this way, too.

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Matchless

15 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History

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anachronism, Hans Christian Andersen, matches, Swan Vestas, The Hobbit, The Little Match Girl, The Lord of the Rings, tinder, tinder box, Tolkien, Vesta, Vilhelm Pedersen

As always, dear readers, welcome.

Recently, we’ve been examining anachronisms in The Hobbit.  These are always such minor things that JRRT, before its initial publication in 1937,

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doesn’t appear even to have noticed them (see our recent postings for more on them) and only corrected some in succeeding editions.

In our last, it was “guns”, but, in this, our last, at least for the present, it’s this:

“After some time he felt for his pipe…Then he felt for his pouch…Then he felt for matches…”

(The Hobbit, Chapter Five, “Riddles in the Dark”)

Others have noticed this before—Anderson in his invaluable The Annotated Hobbit even has a footnote on it (page 116), adding the detail from Chapter Six that “…Oin and Gloin had lost their tinder-boxes.  (Dwarves have never taken to matches even yet.)”

Why are matches an anachronism?  Tolkien, a life-long pipe smoker,

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would have used them without thinking—perhaps these, “Swan Vestas”, long sold as “the smoker’s match”.

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(The name “Vesta” comes from the Roman goddess of the hearth,

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a fragment of whose temple still stands in the Roman Forum in Rome.

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Inside was a hearth—a fire pit—which symbolized all of the hearths in Rome.)

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Matches, however, are a nineteenth-century invention, with a complicated history—and, at the beginning, a complicated ignition.  For example, these, from 1828, had a tip of sulphur which burst into flame when dipped into a container of phosphorus.

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This was hardly a practical way to strike a light and soon matches were made by which friction could be used to light them.  After 1830, the tips of these were coated with white phosphorus, which was rather unstable and could be set off by everything from rubbing against each other to strong sunlight.  They were made by the millions in factories (many employing young women and girls)

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and sold on street corners everywhere, commonly by children and the very poor.

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Considering this made us think of a Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)

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story we can’t bear to read.  In English, it’s called “The Little Match Girl” and was first published in 1845.  Here’s an illustration for it by Vilhelm Pedersen (1820-1859), Andersen’s favorite illustrator.

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(If you would like to read it—we’ve warned you!– here’s the LINK to a very rich site, which has all of Andersen’s fairy tales both in the original Danish and translated into English, along with all of the rest of Andersen’s extensive literary work.)

But, if Bilbo lives in a sort of medieval world, where, presumably, matches wouldn’t be available, then what can he use?  The answer, of course, is what Oin and Gloin have lost (and Sam will have in The Lord of the Rings–see The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 6, “The Old Forest”):  a tinder box.

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Such a box would contain three basic items:  a dry material in which to catch a spark (bark, dry moss, linen rags), a piece of steel and a piece of flint to make sparks.

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And here’s how it works—

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Long before the invention of matches, this was the common way in the western world to strike a light (literally) with “flint and steel”, as it was called—and it’s what the dwarves use in The Hobbit.

It’s also the title of another Hans Christian Andersen story, but a jollier one, called, in English, “The Tinder Box”, first published in 1835—and here’s another Pedersen illustration.

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In this story, a soldier on the way home from war is stopped by an old lady on the side of the road.

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She tells him that there’s treasure below a tree and, if he will climb in, he can take all that he wants and all that she wants in return is a little tinder box to be found there.

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He climbs in and discovers rooms full of riches, as well as three dogs of increasingly enormous size.

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The tinder box is, of course, not a little nothing, but the key to the dogs and to the magic beyond, although the soldier doesn’t know that at the time.  When he climbs out of the tree, and the old woman (a witch, of course), demands the box, however, he grows suspicious and, instead of handing her the box, the soldier hands her her head.

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(We said that this was a jollier story—but clearly not if you’re a witch.)

We refer you to the LINK we mentioned earlier for the rest of the story—SPOILER ALERT:  it does have a happy ending.  As does The Hobbit, except for goblins and wargs, of course.  Oh, and Thorin.

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And then there’s Smaug, whose fire goes out—dare we say it?—like a burnt match.

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Thanks, as always, for reading and, as ever,

MTCIDC

CD

Gun Control?

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History

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anachronism, Dettingen, Fireworks, Gandalf, George Frederich Haendel, gunpowder, guns, Helm's Deep, kettle drums, King George II, Millemete Manuscript, petard, Rammas Echor, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The War of Austrian Succession, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as always—and with our apology if you googled “gun control” and are a bit puzzled as to what has turned up (this often happens with us, making us wonder how googling images of “Saruman” suddenly produces a picture of sardines).

It’s our last posting which got us into this.  We had spotted another anachronism in The Hobbit (clarinets) and had written about it, but then, as a teaser, had concluded with another, referring to Beorn’s joining the Battle of the Five Armies:  “The roar of his voice was like drums and guns…” (Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”)

“Guns” had, of course, stood out.  Some time ago, we had written about Saruman’s use of some sort of explosive at Helm’s Deep

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as well as the destruction by a similar force of portions of the causeway forts of the Rammas Echor, of which no one has seemingly produced an illustration.

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Whatever this force was, it only seems to be used in siegework, suggesting things like a petard

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an explosive device used to blow holes in gates and doors.

Guns, however, do not appear in any form in Tolkien’s world—except here.  Of course, when one thinks about it, there isn’t much of a step from using a blast to destroy a door to funneling that force to propel a missile—as we first see in the Millemete Manuscript of 1326-1327.

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This doesn’t appear to be portable, but the basic object is simply a tube on a stick, easy to make, easy to carry

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and certainly late medieval people had them and employed them,

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so, presumably, they might have appeared in Middle-earth (we once wrote a “what-if” posting on the subject).  Why not?  As JRRT introduced explosives, that seems to provide an opening, but we wonder if he had seen all too often and all too clearly the effect of thousands upon thousands of gunpowder weapons on real people in 1916 and, somehow, the idea of lances and swords seemed more appealing—or, at least, more “heroic”.

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But the quotation was “like drums and guns”.

As we pointed out in our last, drums certainly appear in The Lord of the Rings—there is that disturbing reference to “drums, drums in the deep” in The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-dum”, for example.  But what about “the roar of his voice was like drums and guns”?

When we thought about this, we asked ourselves, what would this actually sound like?  A possible answer appeared from 1749.

In 1749, George II of England

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had been one of the winners of what would become known as “The War of the Austrian Succession” (1740-1748).

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He was definitely in a party mood, so he decided to throw a giant fireworks celebration in London.  To provide the soundtrack, he commissioned George Frederick Haendel (say that “HEN-del”, not as people commonly mispronounce it, “HAHN-del”) (1685-1759).

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George was the last English king actually to see battle, at Dettingen, in 1743,

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and wasn’t interested in anything sweet and soft, with lots of violins.

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Instead, he wanted bangs and booms, starting with kettle drums.

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Then he hired someone to design a giant framework for the fireworks,

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and threw in 101 cannon, just to make sure that it wasn’t too quiet.

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And, on the evening of 27 April, 1749, perhaps as many as 12,000 people (London had perhaps between 600,000 and 700,000 people in 1750) stood around the Green Park to watch.

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Here’s a LINK, if you’d like to hear the music (you’ll have to supply your own cannon and fireworks).

But fireworks brings us back to Tolkien, doesn’t it?  When Gandalf first appears to Bilbo in the first chapter of The Hobbit,

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it seems that almost all that Bilbo knows about Gandalf is his fireworks:

“Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks!  I remember those!  Old Took used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve.  Splendid!  They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!”  (Chapter One, “An Unexpected Party”)

And, when Gandalf reappears in the Shire, to celebrate Bilbo and Frodo’s joint birthday, what does he bring?

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Thanks, as ever, for reading (and listening).

MTCIDC

CD

Bilbo’s Clarinet

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien

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anachronism, Antonio Vivaldi, Benny Goodman, clarinet, Disney, Dwarves, Fantasia 2000, George Gershwin, instruments, Johann Cristoph Denner, Juditha Triumphans, medieval musicians, Paul Dukas, Rhapsody in Blue, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Tolkien

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

Tolkien scholars have long noticed that the 1937 Hobbit has a certain number of anachronisms—as did JRRT himself.

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As have we, too, in past postings, including one on popguns

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[Gandalf speaking to Bilbo:  “It is not like you, Bilbo, to keep friends waiting on the mat, and the open the door like a pop-gun.”  “An Unexpected Party”)]

and tomatoes

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[Gandalf:  “And just bring out the cold chicken and tomatoes!”  “An Unexpected Party”]

and steam engines.

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[“At may never return he began to feel a shriek coming up inside, and very soon it burst out like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel.”  “An Unexpected Party”]

In the 1966 edition, Tolkien changed “tomatoes” to “pickles” and considered changing that engine whistle to “like the whee of a rocket going up into the sky” (see Douglas A. Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit, 47, note 35) but decided against it.  And the popgun—remained the popgun.

Recently, we fell upon another:

“Kili and Fili rushed for their bags and brought back little fiddles; Dori, Nori, and Ori brought out flutes from somewhere inside their coats; Bombur produced a drum from the hall; Bifur and Bofur went out too, and came back with clarinets that they had left among the walking-sticks.” (“An Unexpected Party”)

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Hmm, we thought.  Well, Middle-earth is more or less a medieval world and medieval musicians played stringed instruments and drums and flutes, both transverse (like a modern flute) and recorders, as well as certain other wind instruments, but clarinets?

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When we think of clarinets, the first thing which comes into our minds is the famous 20th-century clarinetist, Benny Goodman (1909-1986)

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with his Bflat clarinet,

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playing the opening of George Gershwin’s (1898-1937)

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Rhapsody in Blue (1924)

 

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in a 1942 recording.  (Here’s a LINK so you can hear that recording for yourself.)  Even if you don’t read music, you can see (and hear) that it begins with a clarinet doing a long trill, then playing a glissando, meaning a slide, up several octaves.  We wonder if Bifur and Bofur could play like that!

(We also recommend a very unusual rendition of the piece.  In 2000, Disney Studios released a film called Fantasia 2000,

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which was their modern take on the 1940 Fantasia

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which consisted of a series of piece of classical pieces with Disney animation interpretations.  Here’s a famous moment from Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

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The 2000 version features a very lively performance of Rhapsody drawn as if it’s taking place during the Great Depression—and even features a cameo appearance by Gershwin himself.

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Here’s a LINK to the scene so that you can enjoy it for yourself.)

But we were wondering about those clarinets, so we did a little research and found this, the ancestor of the clarinet, the chalumeau.

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About 1700, it is thought, this man, Johann Christoph Denner, (1655-1707)

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a famous wind instrument maker, extended the range of the chalumeau and thus made it a more flexible instrument.

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The (presently) first known use of clarinets in an orchestra is in Antonio Vivaldi’s (1678-1741)

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1716 oratorio, Juditha Triumphans.

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And, with that, we thought:  “Hmm.  Yep.  Another anachronism” and were about to move on when our eye was caught by this about Beorn at the Battle of the Five Armies:

“The roar of his voice was like drums and guns…” (Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”)

Drums—well, of course.  Bombur had one.  And, in The Lord of the Rings, there’s that mention of “drums, drums in the deep”, but…guns?

Thanks, as ever, for reading and—as you can see—

MTCIDC

CD

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Across the Doubtful Sea

Recent Postings

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