PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

This is the forest primeval.

The murmuring pines and hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced ocean speaks,

And in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Waste are those peasant farms, and the farmer forever departed!

Scattered like dust and leaves, when mighty blasts of October seize them,

And whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far over the ocean.

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

Yet ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,

List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;

List to a tale of love in Acadie, home of the happy.

OBJECTIVES

• Introduce leitmotivs
• create atmosphere
  

INSTRUMENTS

• marimba
• piano
• violin
• viola
• flute
• clarinet
• horn
  

DURATION

• 2:30

LEITMOTIVS:

• Grand-Pre
  - Tremolo motif in piano, oscillating like the ocean, pan-diatonic harmonies, small range (within a 7^th), alternation between consonant and dissonant, slow movement from one sonority to the next.

• Clarinet melody, counterpoint with horn
• Descending 4^th motif

• Acadie
  • Drones in background (harmonics?),
  • violin melody
  • grace notes  
    

• Evangeline
  • Violin melody
  • ascending fifth, then M6
  • embellishments in flute, trills, etc.
  • Horn, cello for harmony
    

• Gabriel
  • Viola melody
  • descending 4^th, ascending 2^nd.
  • Clarinet embellishments with repeated note rhythms
  • horn, cello for harmony
    

• Ocean
  • horn melody, clarinet counterpoint
  • harmony in cello, piano

• South
  • violin melody, similar to Evangeline, more use of diminished 5^th and minor 6^th
  • very little harmonic accompaniment
  • drones and slides

• Searching/time passing
  • tone passed from instrument to instrument- timbral modulation
  • tremolo in strings
  • rhythmic ambiguity, metric modulation and/or added values
  • atonal, only fleeting use of recognizable chords and sonorities
  • quiet, but with constant fluctuation in dynamics

ATMOSPHERE

• quiet, steady, misty
• all melodic voices alternate in speaking leitmotivs, little counterpoint
• harmonic voices steady in rhythm, but harmonic progression should speed and slow like waves

OTHER

• Does the ensemble play first, or does the narrator speak first?

FOR FURTHER DISSECTION:

This is the forest primeval.

The murmuring pines and hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced ocean speaks,

And in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.