I've recently completed my magnum opus, a setting of the HC Andersen tale The Little Mermaid. At over 1hr 7 mins, it's the longest thing I've ever written but is perhaps also the best and certainly the most characteristic of the sort of thing I'm most comfortable which is expressing a sort of intense naive idealism -- something to which this tale is perfectly suited. Those who think music is primarily a conceptual or formal exercise will be bored by it -- those who love the Janacek operas might just find something registers. As this follows the original story pretty closely (although missing out the initial tales of the sisters when they went to the surface which would hold up the musical action), setting virtually all the dialogue, it's essential to be familiar with the story in the first place.
I attach the score as I can't really expect anyone to fully follow the Symphonic Choirs Wordbuilder sung text As this work makes use of obscure instruments like the glass harmonica or serpent, it's not in its current state really anticipated that it could be performed live, though I haven't gone out of my way to make it unperformable either (just rewrote the harp part to largely conform to Dorico's idea of doable pedalling). For the most part, I use quite thin textures as I feel this suits the innocent naive nature of the heroine but it could be a subject for discussion if anyone manages to get to the end at some point.
01 - Full score - The Little Mermaid.pdf
Music can be found under "latest works" as usual https://play.reelcrafter.com/dko22/latestworks
Replies
Excellent, congratulations on finishing this, David. An hour of non-stop music is quite an achievement.
As you might remember, I really enjoyed your Cinderella fairy tale. It was a lot of fun to read along with the text while your piece played. I personally enjoy when your music has a bit of a programmatic narrative to follow.
I'll have to dig up the original text for the Hans Christian Andersen tale so I can do the same with this one. I’m not sure when, given the length, but I'll be sitting down with it at some point—perhaps with a nice beer or two. I'll report back when I do.
yes, unfortunately, the Little Mermaid is a relatively long tale (I compressed it as much as I could) but the initial descriptions of the five sisters journeys to the surface, although beautifully written, are not included as a) there's virtually no dialogue and b) it would hold up the action as of course course the story is mainly about the youngest sister so feel free to skip this part if you feel so inclined.
This work is more overtly emotional than Cinderella though there are one or two common features such as sections of grotesquerie and an emphasis on the waltz, here often used in an ironic and tragic context.
Anyway, enjoy your beer(s) when you finally manage to find time for the piece!
David, I wanted to add my congratulations on your finishing this lengthy work, it's quite an achievement! I've downloaded your score and am slowly working through the rendering. I was surprised initially by the musical language of the opening - quite far from conventional tonality! The second scene introduced some tonal elements but is still extremely chromatic and doesn't remind me of Janacek in the least (though I'm not familiar with any of his operas). That's as far as I've gotten so far. Please don't take my remarks about tonality as a criticism - they're not intended that way. So far I'm enjoying this quite a bit - the scoring is transparent and quite imaginative. Overall the musical language strikes me as almost impressionistic - not sure if that is your point of departure.
Thank you for sharing this.
Hi Liz -- you're quite right that the musical language early on is not at all Janacek-like. It is later on that the emotional affinity (rather than specific musical language) plus one or two clear references to things in Katja Kabanova for instance none of which are intentional but merely struck me after writing them, occur. If you don't know these operas then you're not very likely to see any of this.
I'm not sure how to define impressionism in music. Debussy is not a significant influence but the watery nature of the tale means that indeed one might find certain passages impressionistic. Will be interesting to see how you get on with the rest. By the third act, things turn increasingly lyrical and emotionally intense.
Tonight was the night, and I finally had a chance to listen to your piece all the way through. To outline the process: I opened a beer, found a copy of the Hans Christian Andersen text, and loaded up the score. I read through the text first and was surprised at how closely it resembled the Disney version I know, with only a few departures.
Listening involved a lot of bouncing between the text, the score, and my notes. I’ve attached some pictures, so you can see the effort I put into making a case, you can assume I listened through. One thing I’ll say is that you really need to have the text open—or at least fresh in your mind—as you mentioned. An hour is a big commitment, but I liken it to watching a movie; understanding it requires your complete investment.
First off, I have to commend you on this serious achievement. Clocking in at over an hour and syncing with a text while remaining engaging and following the emotional arc of the story is no small feat. I can feel that intense naive idealism you mentioned.
The instrumentation was good, and it felt reminiscent of Cinderella—though I don't recall the details entirely, it’s either close or identical. The combination of instruments perfectly captures the atmosphere you’re aiming for, to be honest.
At the opening, I made a note that the following instrumental passage after “farewell” in the opening act was wonderful. It really depicted the mermaid rising like a bubble.
When I reached the text, “After a while, the sails were quickly unfurled, and the noble ship continued her passage; but soon the waves rose higher, heavy clouds darkened the sky, and lightning appeared in the distance. A dreadful storm was approaching; once more the sails were reefed, and the great ship pursued her flying course over the raging sea. The waves rose mountains high, as if they would have overtopped the mast; but the ship dived like a swan between them, and then rose again on their lofty, foaming crests,” it was obvious when it occurred—very intense but admittedly somewhat overbearing.
At bar 60, I noticed you employed a really unusual scale. For someone who claims they don't know much about formal theory, using a G Lydian augmented scale… hmmm, I question that. You really don’t just stumble across some of the harmonic techniques used here. The whole tone scale was very much employed throughout, or often appearing as a synthetic scale of sorts where some other odd scale would lead up to a whole tone scale that began on the next octave. I’ve asked before, and I’ll try again: when you say you're self-taught, I'm curious how you teach yourself. What resources, texts, or other tools have you used throughout your compositional journey? I’m genuinely trying to understand how your brain works when you write. There are things like the scale I mention that I can classify, or "label" in a sense. I'm wondering how in your mind you classify or quantify such items.
At bar 67, I noted a particularly emotional passage that resonated deeply and effectively conveyed the text's meaning at that moment.
The choral writing struck me as "weird," to put it bluntly. Almost nowhere in the piece is there a harmonic or contrapuntal texture to the vocal writing. This isn't a criticism but rather an observation that makes me question the choices. The altos dominate, but I'm unclear on the assigned roles of each voice. Is the soprano only the mermaid, or does she only appear at the moments labeled “Mermaid”? The tenor was entirely absent until the final act, and I wondered if that part is exclusively for the prince.
At 35:26, I noted a wonderfully brilliant, brooding texture that fit the narrative beautifully.
Regarding the passage at bar 156, the intense gliss pattern on the flute won’t sound quite like the mock-up; I’m sure you’re aware that this is a limitation of playback. As you mentioned, there are many other instances where things simply aren't going to happen, such as the choral passage I attached, or other nuances that won't produce the results we hear in the playback. You mention this, but of course it's hard to know what sections specifically.
As for finding much underlying thematic material, I couldn’t identify any in a melodic sense. It felt more like certain textures and modes/scales recurred without distinct themes in melody and rhythm, although there’s a lot to unpack. The theme at the beginning of "The Prince Must Travel" was great, and I would have loved to see it develop further into something more traditionally melodic or utilized more traditional melodic development methods, but it kind of faded into a fog of texture. I get that this isn’t a piece that operates off melodic themes.
Throughout, there were some very mysterious passages unlike anything I've heard before, particularly in the ending of the sea witch scene, which was evocative of a mysterious underwater world alongside the entire work.
There were trills galore, and I know Janáček did this a lot in his writing, which I see throughout yours. I also noticed that your writing often features a thin texture; we never hear a “tutti” passage. The work is extremely contrapuntal, avoiding any sustained "chord" or harmony like the plague, though I know this is typical of your style. I do have to wonder though if using my of the forces you have at hand through those more dramatic story arcs would help aide the intesity and desired emotional effect.
The cornet sounded good—what library did you use?
well, David, I must express my thanks for getting through the whole piece and your most interesting comments! A good deal hits the nail on the head, though perhaps the odd thing shows our different priorities in composing.
Just first of all to get this out of the way, the bar numbers are reset for each movement (or flow in Dorico) so I'd need the corresponding scene as well or timing point to see what you mean.
Anyway, I won't ask which beer you chose but I'd like to think it was either something Danish -- Faxe Fad was the most popular when I lived in Denmark, or the better known Carlsberg or Tuborg. Of course you could have instead chosen a beer from the country which mainly influenced the work and there you're spoiled for choice - Budvar, perhaps (not the awful American Budweiser substitute!) .
OK-- apart from the sisters, who at times have two part harmony, and slaves, there is no choral writing in the work. It's all designed to be sung by soloists (I know I should really get round to changing the score to reflect this as the only tenor is the prince so writing a tenor staff is really redundant). This tale only has four actual roles -- two alto, namely the witch and grandmother, one soprano and one tenor. There might be a case for making the witch a bass but I decided against this. The vocal writing is quite specifically based on what I want the text to express so this always comes first. The lines should work in themselves and actually this was the area I felt the least need to make any changes. The instrumental accompaniment should reinforce this but musically may not always seem directly related -- bitonal writing for instance is not uncommon.
As you say, my writing tends to be contrapuntal and I have a loathing of conventional over-thick vertical orchestration where the individual instruments cannot be heard. In such a sparsely scored work as this, the really powerful climax are going to be few and far between but nevertheless, certain key passages including the storm you mentioned are in fact as close to tutti as I ever get and reinforcing several of these was my first priority after the initial draft. If you have any specific suggestions as to how one might further reinforce certain climaxes with the given instrumentation, I'd be interested to hear. I did quite like the "Historical Instruments" library from VSL which I used in Cinderella and used a few of these instruments again including the glass harmonica, serpent and cornet. As a general point, this is specifically written for the virtual instruments chosen, though things like the flute gliss, will indeed sound different as I don't think you can play a chromatic gliss at quite that speed. Still, nice effect!
On harmony, use of the whole tone scale is very characteristic of Janacek as you doubtless know and thus I instinctively also write in this fashion quite frequently. When I say I'm self-taught -- this is probably also a lie. In fact I don't even teach myself other than analysing my own mistakes, far less ever read any theory books and only infrequently look at scores. My music is purely internal and the means of expression comes from listening to other composers who have managed to say what I also want to express, though of course it's never exactly the same.
I would say there even by fairly conventional standards, there are one or two melodies in the piece - most obviously something like the waltz theme or other more superficial stuff associated with the price. I also think the coda with the daughters of the air is intensely lyrical and to me also melodic. However, those wanting Italian-style operatic tunes in my work will come away empty-handed -- apart from a small amount of Puccini, that entire field leaves me completely cold.
Finally on text specifics. With the "he he he", I should have written ad lib -- I don't actually want what my virtual choir produces but more of a genuine sarcastic laugh. And "beings" can easily be sung as one syllable although I admit I had considered changing it!