Piano Solo - Level 5 - Digital Download SKU: A0.976506 Composed by James Domine. 20th Century,Concert,Contemporary. Score. 49 pages. Earth Music, Ltd. #2081751. Published by Earth Music, Ltd. (A0.976506). Based on the myth of Taliesin, the Ancient Scenes concert suite is made up of five piano solo arrangements extracted from the Legend complete ballet. These are the Invocation, Processional March, Fire Dance, Snake Dance (The Oracular Serpent) and Bacchanal. The music of the Invocation prepares for the reenactment of the myth of the Sun King, whose life and subsequent sacrifice is executed to placate the wrath of the Moon Goddess. According to legendary accounts, King Maelgwynhad determined to offer Taliesin as the sacrificial victim, and led him off in chains to the cadence of the Processional March to the dungeon at Dyganwy where along with Prince Elphin he was imprisoned. The King caused a great sacrificial funeral pyre to be built, stacked high with wood and stoked by burning embers taken from a fir tree, still smoldering from a winter’s storm lightning strike. The people of Gwynedd leapt in a furious sacrificial Fire Dance as Taliesin was brought enmeshed in a wicker cage to the edge of the pyre. A great snake appeared before the fire, coiling threateningly, and rearing up with a fearful hiss, spoke to Taliesin as the Snake Dance unfolds: Can you answer the riddle of the oracular serpent? As soon as Taliesin answered the correct mysterious formula in secret words only audible to the snake, the flames of the pyre roared back into life, and the serpent disappeared into fire to the sound of drums pounding an inexorable rhythm. King Maelgwyn was seized by his own soldiers and thrown without ceremony on the burning maelstrom, and led by the High Priest and the Council of Elders, Taliesin was proclaimed Sun King, who will reign for a period of seven years. All join in a great Bacchanal in celebration of the preservation of order in the universe.
