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unusual facts about Donald Swann



A Elbereth Gilthoniel

In 1967 Donald Swann published a musical rendition in the musical score of the song cycle The Road Goes Ever On.

Bilbo's Last Song

Sometime after Tolkien's death, Joy Hill showed the poem to Donald Swann, who liked the poem so much that he set it to music and included it in the second edition of The Road Goes Ever On in 1978.

Hoffnung Music Festival

They included works such as Haydn's Surprise Symphony 'with extra surprises' added by Donald Swann, an 'excerpt from Belshazzar's Feast, with full orchestra and chorus conducted by William Walton himself (with a fly swat), which turned out to consist of just a single chord with the word "Slain!", and humorous works specially commissioned from well-known composers of the day.

Lord Chamberlain's requirements

Three of the requirements (leaving the theatre, freedom of the gangways and the operation of the safety curtain) were set to music by Donald Swann for the revue Fresh Airs and were later used as encores for the Flanders and Swann revue At the Drop of a Hat.


see also

The Road Goes Ever On

The third edition, published in 1993, added music for "LĂșthien TinĂșviel" from The Silmarillion, which had earlier appeared in The Songs of Donald Swann: Volume I.