Beowulf And The Dragon (half done)

Some explanations about the piece:

It is for string quartet, piano, and narrator. The MP3 is Finale + a text-to-speech program for the narrator.

What you'll hear is about half the length of the full piece.

Esnips link.

Midi and Finale can be found below.



BTW, here is the poem up to the end of the music so far. It is a (very) loose translation from the original poem. The author of the original poem used alliterative verse rather than rhyming verse, so I did too.

Listen now to a story of the Danes. Long ago this was.
Sea-farers they were, spear-armed.
Feast-makers and song-singers as well.
Beowulf, their king, was war-hardened and wise.

(Interlude 1)

Those he ruled feared nothing and no one
Save - in tales told as feast-fires died -
The nameless monster: “Scale-ridden serpent,
He snores, smoke-snorting, toothy-grinned,
Atop the gleaming treasures he thieved from our fathers.”

(Interlude 2)

Beowulf vowed vengeance: “I’ll find and finish him!
The wonders wrought of old will be ours once more.”
So saying, he set sail, leaving behind both hearth and high hall
And alone in a long-ship he wandered the whale-ways
A wind from the east blew his boat across the North Sea -
A sea, now as then, stormy and deep.

(Interlude 3)

Until at last he discovered the dank and lonely sea-cave
Where the scaled horror guarded its stolen hoard.
No torch was needed: an unnatural light, green and dim, Glowed from what grew on the salt-spattered walls.


Still have to work on the battle scene

1st issue is that Viola is written in alto clef, not bass clef.

There are a few chords in the opening piano solo that are a bit on the "wide" side... playable if you arpeggiate them, otherwise, not playable.

Do NOT use the "octava bassa" bass clef in a piano part. Either use lots of ledger lines, or use the smartshape "octava bassa" line.

A notation programme issue arises: why are your arpeggiato symbols above the notes? (notably in the cello part)

Thanks for the reply!

1. I write my scores in concert pitch in bass and treble only as it makes it easier to keep track of things. I create all the transpositions and appropriate clefs before printing the score and parts. Makes it easier for me to see string crossings too - I'm a cellist, so it's just the same an octave higher.

2. I'm writing for a pianist who has exceptionally big hands - he can hit all the chords in the introduction section, non-arp.

3. Got it, fixed w/ 8v bassa line

4. Mostly because it makes the accidentals easier to see; I can't figure out how to get Finale to give arp symbols physical presence (i.e. so the program spaces out the measure so as not to make them bump into anything else). I guess I could make those measures wider manually.

Any comments on the music would be appreciated too