On the Andaman Sea

This is a new work for Strings, Timpani, and Piano. It was inspired during a recent stay in Malaysia, where I had the opportunity to absorb new kinds of music and rhythms for five weeks. I studied Malaysian music and the culture that goes along with it to form my own suite of five movements, merging the musical ideas of southeast Asia and our more familiar Western music.

The strings form the main melodic content of this suite, and the timpani part is quite difficult. The piano part is less significant; it was added later to strengthen the lower strings.

The first movement, "Sacred Dance", was inspired by the Gamelan ensembles that can be found all over Southeastern asia. Although the instrumentation does not match up, I tried to use a familiar chord progression, just going up and down a whole step, and building different melodies on top of that.

Before any religious music can be played, the performer must do a song of prayer. One of these prayers inspired the opening 2-measure cello solo at the beginning of the second movement, "Prayer". This idea is developed throughout this movement until the end when it dies away slowly with a low violin solo.

The third movement, "Dance of the Elders", is mostly a portrait of many of the people in that part of the world. It simply is expressing the view I got. These are happy people, so this is a happy movement.

As I walked through the rainforest, I overheard a choir of men singing through the trees. I later learned that it was a tribe of native people, singing through their daily prayers. This inspired my fourth movement, "Chorale". You can hear the song very quietly at first, then getting closer and closer until you finally are able to hear the entire choir singing from up close, the entire orchestra.

The final movement, "Finale", is my ultimate decision. The mood is melancholy throughout. This is going to be the most challenging movement in performance; I took one melody I wrote and twisted it several different ways.

Here are recordings of each movement, created by finale:

Movement 1: http://www.filedropper.com/mvmt1-sacreddance

Movement 2: http://www.filedropper.com/mvmt2-prayer

Movement 3: http://www.filedropper.com/mvmt3-danceoftheelders

Movement 4: http://www.filedropper.com/mvmt4-chorale

Movement 5: http://www.filedropper.com/mvmt5-finale

PDF's of the scores are also attached.

Thanks,

Grant

Mvmt 1-Sacred Dance.pdf

Mvmt 2-Prayer.pdf

Mvmt 3-Dance of the Elders.pdf

Mvmt 4-Chorale.pdf

Mvmt 5-Finale.pdf

Unfortunately I could only open the first movement, the others wouldn't download. I really enjoyed this though. It does have a very unique flavor to it. There's a very good use of dynamics in there, very extreme. It reminded me a bit of a Zelda game though.

Did you get the idea at all from Ravel? I've heard that he took some influence from Gamelan music.

Did you get the idea at all from Ravel? I've heard that he took some influence from Gamelan music.

The zelda was an unintended benefit, but I have listened to ravel, among other lesser-known composers who have looked to southeast asia for inspiration.