Discussing the Music Part 3: Rochallar

This post is part three of a five part series on my latest album, The Silmarillion Symphony Ep 2: The Fall of Fingolfin. To start with part one, click here. To listen to the music, head over to silmarillionsymphony.bandcamp.com and buy The Fall of Fingolfin. 

This week I’ll be discussing the third piece on the album - Rochallar. Rochallar, if you are familiar with The Silmarillion, is Fingolfin’s 'great horse’. In this part of the story, Fingolfin is coming to grips with what evil has wrought all around him, and that his people have been decimated. So he decides to ride forth alone and challenge Morgoth to a duel. More on that later.

The way the piece is arranged is almost in a two scene format. The first section of the piece, which is in 3/4, is a sort of introductory part. In my mind, Fingolfin is enraged, and is preparing his glorious horse for his ride to Angband. I sort of picture his son Fingon entreating him not to go, understanding that this cannot possibly end well and of course not wanting to lose his father. You can almost picture the end of section one with Fingolfin riding through the gates, and Fingon watching from the walls.

The second section of the piece switches to an aggressive 7/4, depicting the intensity what’s said in the book:

“He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Orome himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar.” (The Silmarillion, pg. 153)

The piece continues from there, and beings a final crescendo as Fingolfin arrives at Angband. I imagine he would’ve commanded Rochallar to return home at a certain point, although the book does not tell us what became of him. The piece ends with a series of accented sforzandos, and some horns calls, meant to represent Fingolfin’s smiting of the doors of Angband and the sounding of his horn:

Thus he came to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon its brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. (Ibid)

At the very end of the piece, after the horn calls, a distant, echoing drum sound. This is Morgoth walking forth slowly from his subterranean throne - from Fingolfin’s perspective.

To get this album for yourself, click here.