Dragon Mountain - Scott Wheeler

Composer: Scott Wheeler

Instrumentation: violin, viola, cello and piano

Duration: Approx. 2 minutes

Date Written: 2002

Additional Information: Dragon Mountain is in some ways a spinoff of my musical-theater piece The Little Dragon, which was based on a story by Jay O’Callahan and written for the chamber ensemble Tales and Scales. In musicalizing O’Callahan’s tale, I drew on music from the Celtic folk tradition. When I started this piano quartet, that folk music still danced in my head, finding its way into this non-narrative concert work. The first movement, “Dragon Song”, begins with an abstracted version of one folk tune but develops its own dramatic impetus based on the harmony of another. “Dragon Flight,” the scherzo, contains a complete statement of a jig, along with some contrasting episodes. The title of the third movement, “The Dragon and the Mirror,” derives from O’Callahan’s story but follows its own path, quite independent of the original dramatic sequence.

Despite these connections with folk music and with storytelling, Dragon Mountain is not in any way either a “folk” quartet or a piece of program music. The three movements share material in a way that freely rearranges the elements of a classical chamber work. By rough analogy with the layout of a sonata or a symphony, the first movement of Dragon Mountain is the exposition, the second movement is a scherzo with trio, and the third is a slow movement leading to a recapitulation of the first allegro.

Dragon Mountain was commissioned and first performed by Razoumovsky + Larsen, with the support of the North Carolina School for the Arts, in 1992. The work was revised in 1993; the revised version was premiered by the Boston Artists Ensemble. It is recorded by the Gramercy Trio with guest pianist Donald Berman and guest violist Edward Gazouleas on the Newport Classic cd Shadow Bands.

–Scott Wheeler