The Music of the Firmaments

Rev dear Rev: Is there some basis toward a theology of music in the writings of Tolkien and others of the LOTR Series, or are we reading too much into Tolkien?

Some of the great composers have often wished to write a piece of music that imitates the Pythagoras theory that the heavens are filled with music, Olivier Messaien himself sought to reveal the music of birdsong in his modern operas, and the great war writer Sebastian Faulkes reminded us of the music of birdsong in his book aptly named Birdsong about the birds of the western fronts in the Great War, so the reader is in good company; even Beethoven said his best music lay in the masses he composed, Lloyd Webber always argued that a good composer would write a Mass and Mozart was happy enough to escape into hiding beyond the papal states when he stole the heavenly music of the angels as he copied the Allegri Miserere and the Missa Papae Marcelli from the Sistine Chapel. So the dream of composers revolves around that elusive theory of Pythagoras that the world was created to heavenly music. And Tolkien curiously also alludes to this reality in his book The Silmarillon when he says that the original music of creation is still glimpsed and heard partially in small ways in the sound of the running of stream water and the music of waterfalls - something he decides to set in stone in the chronicles about the elves. So a theory is out there, but obviously it needs a newer expression.