Celebrated film composer Hans Zimmer says you can sum up composing in one word: Story! I agree with Zimmer that composers are storytellers. When done well, composers take their audiences on a journey that is clear and compelling.
Because of this, I’m keenly interested in what makes a good story. If we understand the purposes of story, we’re more likely to tell meaningful ones. In this vein, J.R.R. Tolkien, in his essay On Fairy-Stories, explores what he sees as the four primary functions of what he calls “fairy-stories.”
Tolkien’s Four Functions of Stories
He argues that fairy-stories are not mere escapism but serve essential purposes in human life. He identifies four key functions that fairy-stories fulfill: Fantasy, Recovery, Escape, and Consolation. Each function offers a unique way to engage with reality, deepening our understanding of the world and ourselves.
1. Fantasy: The Power of Sub-Creation
Tolkien saw Fantasy as the heart of fairy-stories: the act of creating a Secondary World that is internally consistent and imaginatively compelling. This power of “sub-creation” reflects humanity’s role as image-bearers of a divine Creator. For Tolkien, myths and fairy-stories were not lies, but echoes of a deeper truth—a search for meaning that hints at divine reality. Fantasy, then, is not escapism, but a means of expressing truths too deep for ordinary language.
With that vision in mind, I’ve come to see how my own musical art reflects this function. I have always been fascinated by the way great composers build entire worlds out of sound. Composers like Hans Zimmer and Howard Shore demonstrate incredible versatility, adapting their musical language to fit the stories they accompany. Their scores transport listeners into richly imagined worlds, making their compositions a form of sonic world-building—an act of Fantasy in the Tolkienian sense. This kind of imaginative work doesn’t just build other worlds—it prepares us to return to our own world with fresh eyes.
2. Recovery: Seeing the World Anew
If Fantasy is the act of creating a compelling Secondary World, Recovery is the effect that world has on us when we return to our own. For Tolkien, Recovery is the gift of seeing the familiar with fresh eyes. Fairy-stories break the spell of routine, restoring wonder to the ordinary. A tree, for example, is no longer just a tree—it is a marvel. The world is overflowing with beauty if we have the eyes to see it. By stepping into imagined worlds, we return to our own with renewed clarity, reminded that it is charged with meaning.
This dynamic has been vividly illustrated for me in the life of conductor Leonard Bernstein. Though a secularist, Bernstein once remarked¹ that when he heard Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, he could not help but feel that something was right in the world. Despite his naturalistic convictions², Beethoven’s storytelling helped him see the world with new eyes. Like a great fairy-story, Beethoven’s music helped him recover a more beautiful vision of the world, even when his philosophical beliefs did not support it.
3. Escape: Not from Reality, but from its Chains
Tolkien famously defended Escape as a legitimate function of fairy-stories. He argued that those who criticize escape confuse the flight of the deserter with the escape of the prisoner. In a world marred by injustice and sorrow, fairy-stories offer a vision of freedom—not from reality itself, but from its distortions. They awaken courage, kindle hope, and point us toward how things ought to be.
I experienced something of this vision following one of my concerts. After my college senior recital, a professor of mine approached me and said how much he loved one of my pieces. When I asked him what he liked about it, he told me that it combined experiences of suffering with hope in a way that reminded him of our Christian walk. I couldn’t have been happier. That moment reminded me that music, like fairy-stories, can provide an escape not from reality itself, but from despair—offering a glimpse of hope in the midst of hardship.
4. Consolation: The Eucatastrophe and the Happy Ending
Of the four functions, Tolkien prized Consolation most—especially what he called the “Eucatastrophe,” the sudden and joyous turn. Fairy-stories, at their best, don’t deny sorrow but reveal a joy that transcends it. For Tolkien, this joy echoes the deepest reality of all: the Christian gospel, where resurrection bursts forth from death. In a good fairy-story, we catch a glimmer of that ultimate hope.
Tolkien’s idea of Consolation resonates deeply with me because the world around us, whether it intends to or not, is always telling us stories—stories about where we come from and where we are going. For instance, I sometimes listen to astrophysicists talk about the death of our sun in about 5 billion years, when it will expand and potentially engulf the Earth. While that end certainly is the way of our cosmos left to itself, I have to consciously check myself and say, “Wait—that’s not the end of the story! My faith gives me hope for Eucatastrophe. I believe that grace from outside the natural order will visit us, just like the resurrection.” That feature of Tolkien’s theology of storytelling is what makes it so compelling. It’s the moment that speaks to our sense of destiny, beauty, meaning, and hope. To use C.S. Lewis’s words on Tolkien’s work, “Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron.”
Our Call to Tell Stories
If we as musicians, like Hans Zimmer has said, have as our job the task of telling stories, then Tolkien’s reflections on story can aid us in our task. Through the fantasy we employ, we can transcend the disenchantment of the mundane to help people recover sight of the meaning and beauty that fills this world. And rather than settling for second-class stories that fall back on tropes or propaganda, we have the opportunity to provide places of escape—bringing people to places where justice and peace can prevail in their lives. Finally, we have the opportunity to resist the cultural lies about how our story ends by weaving hope and eucatastrophes into the stories we tell. What a calling to tell stories like this!
¹ Richard B. Gunderman, “Leonard Bernstein Saw the Answer,” The Atlantic, November 2007, theatlantic.com
² Joseph Horowitz, “Leonard Bernstein: The Romantic Who Became Modern,” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 77, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), pp. 582–592, jstor.org