In 1995 Caspar Reiff founded The Tolkien Ensemble.

And that year, Caspar, a classical guitarist who studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and his like-minded musical colleague and co-composer Peter Hall along with the Tolkien Ensemble began what proved to be an all consuming task, to set to music all 70 poems from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings. Ten years, 150 musicians, 14 soloists, 4 recordings, and one complete re-mastering session later, Caspar & Company can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their many labours.



Drawing inspiration from British classical composers such as Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Finzi, as well as from the Nordic, Irish, and British folk music traditions Caspar and Peter began their monumental task.

The first phase of the project was completed In 1997 with the release of the first recording, An Evening in Rivendell. This effort was received warmly by the critics as well as devoted Tolkien fans. It was followed in 2000 with the release of A Night In Rivendell. These two recordings were also released together as a set called 24 Songs From The Lord Of The Rings.

Then in 2003 At Dawn In Rivendell was released which marked an upsurge of interest in the progress of the ensemble's undertaking thanks in large part to the popularity of Peter Jackson's LotR films and also by Christopher Lee's participation in the Tolkien Ensemble's long term project.

Caspar Reiff had fortuitously crossed paths with Christopher Lee at the Danish premier of the first movie The Fellowship Of The Ring. The Tolkien Ensemble had been asked to perform at the festivities, and when asked by Caspar, Christopher Lee, a devoted fan of Tolkien's stories, expressed an interest in being part of the third recording in the series. The new collaboration was a great success, and Christopher Lee continued to lend his talents to the fourth and final recording of the project Leaving Rivendell which was released in 2005.

With the release of the fourth recording all 70 songs and poems found in The Lord Of The Rings books had been set to music, but there was still one remaining step to be taken.

Back in 1995 when the project was started, the decision had been made to approach the large project in a non-sequential manner. Caspar and Peter took on their compositional duties working on the various songs and poems not in the order that they were found in the books, but rather based on where their inspiration as composers took them. The result was that while all 70 poems were eventually set to music, the songs were scattered across the four recordings with no regard to where they actually fit in Tolkien's tale. Also, since the project had taken 10 years to complete, the first two recordings in the set were now out of print and fairly difficult to find. So Caspar and Peter took the fruits of their long labour and repackaged the entire set of songs into a new 4 CD box set that follows Tolkien's chronological order of the pieces instead of their own recording order of the pieces. The result is their newly released The Lord of the Rings: Complete Songs and Poems.

For anyone new to this body of work I can heartily recommend the set to you. The music is wonderful and I think does a masterful job of capturing the spirit and essence of Tolkien's work. I am a great fan of Howard Shore's film score for The Lord Of The Rings movies, and I will own each of his complete soundtrack recordings as they are released. Those will be treasures in their own right, but what Caspar Reiff and Peter Hall have done over the past ten years I think stands alone as a complete and faithful musical interpretation of Tolkien's own poetry which is itself such a crucial element of his well-loved story.

And for those of you who, like me, have been fortunate enough to have experienced each of the Tolkien Ensemble's recordings as they have come out, well, it will be up to you to decide if you want to purchase this new set. I haven't yet, but there seems to be a lot of nice additions in the packaging and the materials included in this new box set to make it worth my (and your?) while. The music is essentially the same as in the four original recordings, but the chronological song order I think makes for a completely new and engrossing listening experience. I know this because when I first became aware of this new release, I used the track listing to reorder my own Songs Of Rivendell playlist in my iTunes library to match the chronological song order. I love it!

And I've been waiting 10 years myself to hear this song cycle as it was meant to be heard.

Music by Caspar Reiff & Peter Hall

The Tolkien Ensemble with
The Danish Radio Sinfonietta/DR
Danish National Chamber Choir/Dr
Copenhagen Young Strings
The Chamber Choir Hymnia
The Copenhagen Chamber Choir Camerata

Soloists:
Christopher Lee
Peter Hall
Nick Keir
Tom McEwan
Pocl Dissing
Morten Ernst Lassen
Kurt Ravn
Singe Asmussen
Mads Thiemann
Ulrick Cold
Jörgen Ditlevsen
Ole Norup
Malene Nordtorp Windekilde
Caspar Reiff

Morten Ryelund, director


"This 4 CD-box set contains the world's first complete musical interpretation of all the poems in J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece 'The Lord of the Rings' set to music by Caspar Reiff & Peter Hall. 14 soloists, among these the world-famous actor Christopher Lee, and more that 150 professional musicians, have taken part in the ambitious project, which took 10 years to complete.

The songs help one relive 'The Lord of the Rings' in an entirely new way, as they range from happy and funny hobbit folk-songs in the beginning of the book, to evocative and dramatic highlights towards the end."


CD One: The Fellowship of the Ring

1 The Old Walking Song I 5:08
2 Verse of the Rings I 1:17
3 The Old Walking Song II 1:13
4 A Walking Song I 2:49
5 Elven Hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel I 5:32
6 A Drinking Song 2:43
7 The Bath Song 1:41
8 Farewell Song of Merry and Pippin 3:07
9 Song in the Woods 1:45
10 Tom Bombadils Song I 5:40
11 Song to Goldberry 0:26
12 Tom Bombadils Song II 0:15
13 Tom Bombadils Song III 4:32
14 Ho! Tom Bombadil I 0:56
15 Wights Chant 1:42
16 Ho! Tom Bombadil II 0:45
17 Tom Bombadisl Song IV 2:54
18 There is an inn, a merry old inn... 4:59
19 The Riddle of Strider I 0:56
20 The Fall of Gil-galad 3:39
21 Song of Beren and Luthien 7:58


CD Two: The Fellowship of the Ring Continued

1 Sam's Rhyme of the Troll 5:20
2 Song of Eärendil 10:18
3 Elven Hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel II 2:09
4 Boromir's Riddle 0:35
5 The Riddle of Strider II 2:31
6 Verse of the Rings II 1:06
7 Warning of Winter 0:37
8 Bilbo's Song 3:32
9 Song of Durin 6:40
10 Song of Nimrodel 4:40
11 Frodo's Lament for Gandalf 5:47
12 Galadriel's Song of Eldamar I 6:25
13 Galadriel's Song of Eldamar II 6:12
14 Galadriel's Song of Eldamar II 2:18


CD Three: The Two Towers

1 Lament for Boromir 8:24
2 Song of Gondor 2:57
3 The Long List of the Ents I 2:14
4 Treebeards Song 4:11
5 The Ent and the Entwife 7:45
6 Bregalads Song 6:13
7 The Ents Marching Song 2:18
8 Galadriels Messages 1:51
9 Lament of the Rohirrim 3:07
10 Gandalfs Song of Lorien 3:13
11 Call to Arms of the Rohirrim 0:35
12 Gandalfs Riddle of the Ents 0:31
13 The Long List of the Ents II 0:57
14 A Rhyme of Lore 2:02
15 Gollums Song & Riddle 3:45
16 Oliphaunt 2:17
17 Sams Invocation of Elven Hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel 1:33


CD Four: The Return of the King

1 Malbeth the Seer's Words 5:53
2 Lamnet For Théoden 9:35
3 Théoden's Battle Cry 0:35
4 At Théoden Death 0:25
5 Snowmane's Epitaph 0:21
6 Éomer's Song 2:37
7 Songs of Mounds of Mundburg 5:56
8 Athelas 0:34
9 Song of Lebennin 4:56
10 Sam's Song in the Orc-tower 5:23
11 Long Live the Halflings! 1:02
12 Legolas's Song of the Sea 5:22
13 The Eagle's Song 3:24
14 Burial Song of Théoden 6:51
15 The Old Walking Song III 3:33
16 A Walking Song II 1:37
17 Elven Hymn to Elbereth Gilthoniel III 6:07