Dragon Mountain - Scott Wheeler

Composer: Scott Wheeler Instrumentation: violin, viola, cello, and piano 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 an