Tall Mountain Tales for fortepiano and guitar (2024)
Tall Mountain Tales was commissioned by Duo Firenze (Robert and Pamela Trent) as part of a project to create new works for early instruments, specifically the 18th century fortepiano and the 19th century Romantic guitar. Pamela’s instrument is a Viennese fortepiano (after Walter) by Rodney Regier with FF – a’’’ compass. Robert’s instrument is a Gennaro Fabricatore guitar from 1803 (standard range with high A). The funding for this project came from Robert’s Radford University Dalton Eminent Scholar Award.
In composing this work, I was inspired by the mystique and history of the Appalachian region of the United States, where Robert and Pamela are based. Legends, stories, and myths abound in the folklore tradition of this region, and I read with fascination the myths about Sasquatch and Mothman, the Moon-Eyed People and the Brown Mountain Lights, and the many Appalachian ghost stories. I listened to recordings of the great performer Jean Ritchie singing traditional songs from the region, accompanying herself on the Appalachian dulcimer, an instrument unique to this area of the country. I selected one traditional Appalachian folk song in particular, “Shady Grove,” to bring into my composition as one of the two main themes.
This piece is a kind of tone poem, with sections loosely based on the images and stories that captured my imagination. The structure is as follows:
The Fog of Time: an opening section in free rhapsodic style, a prologue that seeks to conjure up both the fog over the mountains and the ancient history of the region. After all, the Appalachian mountain range began forming over a billion years ago and is one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world.
The Ghost of Shady Grove: this section introduces the folk melody “Shady Grove.” In this song, the meaning of Shady Grove is ambiguous since it is used both as a place name and a name of a young woman. I imagined Shady Grove as a young Appalachian woman whose ghost still haunts the places where she used to live.
Ancient Battles: the central section of the piece reflects the numerous battles that have been fought on this land, including during the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and conflicts between Native American tribes prior to the arrival of Europeans. This section introduces the other main musical theme of the piece, which sounds here like an energetic bugle call of an advancing army that devolves into a chaotic and dissonant, even grotesque, version of itself.
The Ghost Returns: the Shady Grove melody comes back in a passionate and nostalgic section.
Lights in the Darkness: the epilogue of the piece is an allusion to Brown Mountain Lights, mysterious lights of unknown origin that have been observed on some nights above Brown Mountain, North Carolina for over a century. According to a Cherokee legend, around 1200 A.D. a great battle was fought between the Cherokee and Catawba Indians at Brown Mountain and the mysterious lights are the Native American women still searching for the souls of their men who died in battle. The theme presented in the guitar part is the melody that we first encountered in the Ancient Battles section; however, it is slow and mournful here.
Olga Amelkina-Vera
Plano, TX
June 28, 2024