Sowash: "Seduction and Sorcery" from “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:  A Christmas Legend,” a five-movement suite.

Hello —

"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is an anonymous 14th-century story-poem.  I love it and have read it many times though not in the original Middle English; only scholars can do that.  I like J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation; it's funny, spooky, mystical, wise and wry.  Tolkien knows how to tell a story.

Composers sometimes tell stories, too.  When I undertook to write a suite of movements depicting various scenes in Sir Gawain’s adventure, I found myself far removed from my usual stomping grounds.

If you’ve kindly allowed me to include you among the recipients of these messages for a while, you know quite a lot about my music by now.  It’s often about the changing seasons, the bucolic landscapes of the American Midwest and other places I’ve visited.  It’s usually cheerful and optimistic, affirming humane values and the sweetness of life.  At least that’s how most of it seems to me.

Devising suitable music for “Sir Gawain” forced me to think outside that box.  There is Seduction and Sorcery in that tale.  How could I music-ify such things?

Seduction?  Gawain is a guest in a mysterious castle for three days.  Each morning he is awakened when his beautiful hostess furtively enters his bedroom.  Her husband  off hunting, she attempts, more aggressively each time, to elicit an invitation from Gawain to … well, you know.

He’s in a delicate position.  As a high-minded Christian knight, he strives to be pure in heart and deed.  But if he rejects her advances he risks offending a lady who is also his generous hostess.  He barely manages it, conceding only a kiss each time.

I tried to evoke this tense, sensual scene with tip-toe staccatos in the piano and a weird tune played by the muted trumpet, representing Sir Gawain a-bed, followed by a “soprano solo” — the violin representing the Lady, in effect singing her song of seduction.  Smilingly, invitingly, “Take me, I’m yours.”

The three attempts to seduce Sir Gawain comprise a test of his worth.  He fails, not by entering into a liaison with his hostess but by accepting from her a secret, supposedly magical gift on the third morning, one that she hints will save his life in the deadly combat he must face in the final scene of the tale.  Read it!  As I said, it’s a great story.

I tried to evoke Sorcery in the contrasting middle section of this movement.  In the seduction sections, the four instruments play in counterpoint with one another, intertwining like would-be lovers.  But in the middle ‘sorcery’ section, the counterpoint ceases and they join in four-part, choral harmonies to “sing” a weirdly harmonized, profane hymn, sinister, somber and mysterious.

Then comes the seduction music again.  Near the end, the tippy-toe staccatos in the piano suddenly become more rapid and intense, the song of seduction more forcible.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:  A Christmas Legend,” a five-movement suite, is featured on my CD “A Christmas Gift,” in a beautiful rendering by violinist Cheryl Trace, trumpeter Thaddeus Archer, cellist Robert Clemens and pianist Greg Kostraba  To hear their delightfully sly and sensual take on "Seduction and Sorcery," click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/seduction_sorcery.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/seduction_sorcery.pdf

I'd love to know what you think about this music; reply if you're inclined.  But please don't feel that you are expected to reply.  I'm just glad to share my work in this way.

As always, feel free to forward this message to friends who might enjoy it.

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