Funerailles d'un sorcier

[ronde_des_sylphes]

This piece started life as a pure improvisation about five years ago. I've subsequently written it out and made a few minor tweaks (principally amending the cadenza-like passage towards the end).

Recorded during a long session on a church piano (Weinbach grand).

Essentially it is a very free fantasia on the Dies Irae motif, which comes and goes throughout the piece, cropping up in a lot of places embedded in the texture.

Dark stuff!

[nightshade]

Really enjoyable composition, immediately captures your attention all the way to the end.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it!

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Did some final edits and added a bit of reverb.

Sheet music video:

Essentially the Dies Irae motif is largely used as a four note cell which keeps returning in various forms throughout the piece, as befits a somewhat gothic fantasia.

A motley collection of netherwordly creatures congregate to commemorate a great wizard. Bells toll in the opening, summoning them to begin their procession. There is more animation as the throng gathers, the hammering of goblins and the marching of dark soldiers offset by the elegiac, threnodic contemplation of their fellow travellers. The first four notes of the Dies Irae are increasingly heavily embedded into the texture as the music grows towards a climax and lightning strikes. The proceedings end in a pallor of gloom.