I found this CD called The Masterharper of Pern at a sci-fi convention I went to recently, and it is so awesome. I started this thread to alert other McCaffrey fans about it, because I had no idea myself that such a thing existed until I saw it there.
The album is credited to Anne McCaffrey (lyrics), Tania Opland (music- writing, performing, and vocals), and Mike Freeman (music- writing, performing and some vocals and some lyrics), and it was created as a companion album to the book. Opland and Freeman are a musical team, according to the liner notes.
Some of the songs are instrumentals mentioned the book, such as “Robinton’s first whistle tune”, “Merelan” (written by Petiron in the book), and “Robinton’s dream”. And some are arrangements of songs familiar to the books in general, such as “Duty Song”, “The Question Song”, “Lessa’s Ride”, and “March of the Wings”. Those last two took much of their lyrics from the verses that were chapter headers of Dragonflight.
The style of music is a blend of British Isles folk with more formal Medieval courtly music, with a Middle Eastern flavor on some of the guitar and flutes. It’s so cool, and I think these folks did such a great job on it. Most of it was not quite what I had envisioned or expected, but the quality of it blew me away. For example, in “The Question Song” I had always thought of it as having a sort of jarring quality, like something that would hit you wrong in a big way. The way it was arranged, however, was of the melody having a tension or a build-up of tone that isn’t resolved. And I have to say also that Opland’s vocals on this are excellent. Her voice has just the kind of gentle, well-practiced, and poignant (sp?) sound I would expect from a Pernese Harper. “Lessa’s Ride” is particularly evocative: “Black, blacker, blackest/ And cold beyond all frozen things./ Where is between when there is naught/ to life but fragile dragon wings?” and the chorus is the quatrain that ends with the line “This way was twice decided”. I was really impressed with the way they translated that into music.
I’m definitely going to look into this duo’s other recordings. If anyone is interested in this CD they have it available through their website at http://members.aol.com/opland
Apologies if this sounded a bit weird, I’m way under my sleep quota at the moment. 
