The Necromancer (String Quartet)

This is a pretty-much-completed draft that wound up on the cutting room floor for my recent string quartet project The Arcana. I liked it well enough, but felt it didn't really fit in with the other movements for that suite. So here it is! A dark little thing, just about 3 minutes. All comments welcome! I hope you like it 🙂

Edited May 28, 20205 yr by Noah Brode

It'd be interesting to hear a live performance of this work, the mockup doesn't do it justice (as always). The music's atmosphere is reminiscent of a movie score. If you do ever work on this piece more/revise it, I would develop the middle section a little more (starting at bar 67). That whole section just felt out of place...(mostly)harmonically and (somewhat) rhythmically. 

This might be a personal preference, but when I don't like seeing the 8va dash thing...I prefer to read the actual note. I try to avoid using the 8va as much as I can, I think you can too especially in the beginning of the piece for the first violin. You can probably keep it at the end. Also, string tremolos are noted by 3 slashes. 

Thanks for the comments @danishali903 -- all very helpful. I think the middle part sounds out of place because it has some stylistic callbacks to the other parts of the suite that this was originally supposed to be a part of. Good to hear that perspective, though. Thanks again for listening 🙂

I like the dark (sometimes almost creepy especially near the end with the high tremolos) atmosphere you create here.

I love this part.

Great contrast between the first part (Have you listened to Philip Glass violin concertos?) and the final part, which is a bit sad.

@PaperComposer -- Thanks, I was definitely going for a "creepy" vibe here! 😈

@Luis Hernández -- Thank you! It's interesting that you bring up Philip Glass, since this was definitely influenced by his 'alternative' soundtrack to the original film of Dracula. It's not one of his better-known works, but it's very good -- a dark and haunting set of miniatures for string quartet.

Really lovely, can I ask you about the title, is the work programmatic or does it just fit a particular mood ? 

@Jackleaf -- Thanks! The title was mainly mostly just to fit the mood.

The original title was 'The Emperor' and it was the original version of that movement from the first volume of my recent string quartet piece 'The Arcana'. In the end, though, I went with a different version of The Emperor in that set and had this piece left over. So I just added a similar title that reflected the mood.

I know that soundtrack (Dracula, by Glass). I have the CD.

In case you are interested: