Joe Stollery

It seems that every ruined castle has at least one bloodthirsty story surrounding it. In this piece, it was the ruins of Kildrummy Castle that formed the basis for this piece. I have visited this castle many times, and I recently got captivated by the legend of a local blacksmith in the early 14th century, set against the backdrop of the Scottish Wars of Independence. The blacksmith, Osbarn, was notorious for his disloyalty, and during a siege of the castle, he managed to get bribed by the invading English forces, who promised him all the gold he could carry if he managed to surrender the castle. He did so by setting fire to the food stores and thus starving the castle. After the castle surrendered, Osbarn came to collect his gold, whereby it was all poured down his throat, summing up the moral that treachery will always be repaid by treachery.

For me, such a legend screams for an operatic adaptation, and I came up with the idea of premiering such an opera at the original location, just like in my previous opera The Maiden Stone. The piece that eventually came to be would hopefully make up the overture to this projected opera. Although the piece is not explicitly programmatic, I was always thinking of the original legend, and some of the thematic material and its placement in the music were inspired by events in the story.

I was inspired musically by the forms of Beethoven’s incidental overtures to Egmont and Coriolan in particular for this piece, and there may perhaps also be rock and metal influences in some of the brutal harmonic nature and obsessive rhythms of this music!

Choosing the instrumentation was relatively straightforward: I wanted capture the psychological aspect of Osbarn’s persona in the dual forms of fire and hammering metal, represented by a brass septet and four percussionists respectively.

The score presented here is in C.