With the Norwegian National Championships due to take place in Bergen this weekend, yet another competing band will take the opportunity to provide the listeners and adjudicators with a world premiere performance.

Yggdrasill

Jaren Hornmusikkforening (in action last year) will perform ‘Yggdrasill’ by Dan Price as their own-choice selection in the Elite Section.

It is a work specially written for the band and MD Howard Evans, and finds its inspiration in norse folklore with the mythical Yggdrasill tree.

Cosmos

In Norse mythology, Yggdrasill is an immense Ash tree that connects the nine home-worlds of the Norse cosmos, as well as being home to a judgmental dragon, a knowledgeable hawk who sits between the eyes of an eagle, and a message carrying squirrel.

The work is an extended piece for brass band and percussion which comprises of seven musical scenes, each reflecting the composer’s own impressions of the individual worlds found in the Yggdrasill legend.

Images and pictures

As the composer states: “As with most of my music, I attempt to conjure images and pictures with the sounds and musical techniques I employ and I urge anyone who performs any of my work to seek out the pictures hidden within the scores."

The mysteriousness of hell, the crackle and spits of fire, the greediness and devilry of the dwarves, the jocular amble of the giants, the ethereal sparseness and great wisdom of the elvesDan Price

Hidden dwarves

He added: "The mysteriousness of hell, the crackle and spits of fire, the greediness and devilry of the dwarves, the jocular amble of the giants, the ethereal sparseness and great wisdom of the elves or the sound of Odin's steed Sleipnir, bearing his master back to Valhalla are all hidden within the music.”