The Music of the Ainur
Ainulindalë; the Great Theme by which the world was made
Definition
The Music of the Ainur (the Ainulindalë, “”) is the cosmological prologue of the whole legendarium: the great theme sung by the Ainur before Eru Ilúvatar in the Timeless Halls, from whose web the world Eä was afterwards made. Its description opens The Silmarillion and is the revealed “first chapter” of the mythology.
The Three Themes
The account tells of three compositions: 1. The First Theme: Eru propounded to the Ainur, and they sang in harmony — “the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs… and great choristers”. Each Ainur sang only the part of the theme given to him, but all together shaped “a great pattern”. The most gifted, Melkor, was given “the greatest gifts of power and knowledge”, yet his was “a theme of his own… that was like unto the theme of the One, but not the same”; envy of the Flame Imperishable stirred in him. 2. The Discord: Melkor wove into the music discords of his own devising, “for desire grew hot within him to bring into being things of his own”, and “there was a clamour… and the music ceased” — but Eru arose and “raised his left hand”, and the theme turned to a Second Theme, “deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow” — the theme of the Children of Ilúvatar. Again Melkor’s discord rose louder, and Eru raised his right hand: a Third Theme,; at its greatest Melkor’s discords clashed “like the clashing… of armies of ships upon the sea”, until Eru “lifted up his voice, at which the music ceased, and there was silence”. 3. The Word of Making: Eru then and showed it to the Ainur — a world growing and beautiful, but dragged by the discord; and he said: “Eä! Let these things Be!” and the world was. And he declared the meaning of the discords: “no theme may be played that has not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite… but this shall be… the evil of Melkor shall be the source of the world’s good, and the marring of it the source of its healing”.
Significance
The Music is the myth that grounds Tolkien’s theodicy: the world’s evil is neither accidental nor victorious — it is woven, against its own author’s intent, into a harmony that Eru alone comprehends (“and he that heareth doth not comprehend, for his thought is veiled”). It establishes: - the origin of evil (the fallen Ainur’s desire to make and rule); - the freedom of the Valar’s children (no compulsion); - the promise of healing (Arda Healed at the Dagor Dagorath); - the nobility of music itself — Tolkien’s deepest aesthetic conviction, the world as song.
In the Texts
The Ainulindalë was drafted early (the “Music of the Ainur” in the Book of Lost Tales gives a rambling, older version without Eä’s word), and reworked for the published Silmarillion. Its later, most finished statement is that of 1948 edited by Christopher Tolkien, who in Morgoth’s Ring appends Tolkien’s own commentary on the “nature of the world” and the “ambiguity” of the discord.