The Wizard's Woods

Описание: This is my large quarantine project of 2020. I had a couple goals with this piece when I first started. Firstly, I wanted to write something in the vein of a Stravinsky ballet such as Firebird or Rite of Spring. Part of this was write a piece that tells a story which is written out below.

From an orchestration and arrangement standpoint, I wanted to practice writing for woodwinds more as well as using more sparse orchestration where appropriate so that larger sections have more impact. I also didn't want to be tied down to any particular time signature, so I ignored bar lines for most of the piece (with the exception of quicker, more rhythmic sections) to let the melodies begin and end naturally.

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This piece tells the story of a young girl wandering alone through the woods in the evening. As night quickly approaches, she realizes that she is lost and grows more and more frightened.

All of a sudden, she comes across a small camp. As she goes to check it out, a bunch of small dwarfs come out of the woods frolicking playfully towards her. She asks them for help to find her way out of the woods. They tell her they don't know, but there is an angry wizard that lives in a house just beyond in a clearing. They point the way before dancing off back into the forest. 

The girl walks nervously up the clearing to find the wizard's house. He greets her at the door, and she explains that she was lost and needed to get out of the woods. He agrees to help, but explains it would be safer in the morning since the sun was already setting. Suddenly, he looks past her and sees the dwarfs dancing out into the clearing. He whips out his staff and starts shouting. A burst of light comes down with a big CRASH and the dwarfs scamper off. Frightened by this outburst, the girl also takes off while he's distracted and runs back into the woods to hide.

Night starts to fall as she hides from the angry wizard. With the light fading, she decides to try to find the dwarf camp in hopes that they have a fire going. She creeps through the woods in the direction of the camp and manages to find it again, though the dwarfs are nowhere to be seen. Distraught by the thought of spending the night alone in the woods, she begrudgingly decides to go back towards the wizard's house.

As she is getting up to leave though, the dwarfs come back. They surround the camp and create a roaring bonfire. Excitement soon turns to horror however as they start dancing wildly and carelessly around with torches and start lighting the trees around the camp on fire. As the forest around her begins to burn, she remembers the wizard's reaction to seeing the dwarfs and realizes that this must have been why he cleared them out earlier.

The girl runs out towards the clearing and towards the wizard's house. The wizard is already out and walking towards the camp with his staff ready. With a loud shout and a wave of his staff, he sends multiple large bursts crashing down on the dwarfs. In the confusion, the dwarfs drop their torches and scatter into the woods. Seeing the forest on fire, he summons a light rain cloud to put the fires out. He explains that the dwarfs are very mischievous and he is constantly having to disperse them or risk having the forest catch fire. He invites her back to the house to stay warm until morning when he can lead her safely out of the forest. 

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MP3 Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dLJg...

Composed and produced in Reaper
Woodwinds - VSL SE, 8DIO Claire, Berlin Woodwinds (flute)
Brass - Hollywood Brass Gold, Chapman Trumpet, OT Majestic Horn, VSL SE Trumpet
Percussion - Spitfire Percussion
Strings - Kirk Hunter Concert Strings 3 (CS3), Joshua Bell Violin, VSL SE (harp)

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Timestamps:
00:00 Lost
02:51 Dwarfs
04:26 The Wizard
07:04 Nightfall
09:15 Revels
11:16 Dispersal
13:02 Rescue