Super Legend Quest Fantasy III

Vitals

Duration: 12-15 minutes (6 minutes for Mobile Edition)

Instrumentation:

  • Eb Clarinet
  • Bb Clarinet 1
  • Bb Clarinet 2
  • Bb Clarinet 3
  • Eb Alto Clarinet (alternate parts available for F Basset, Bb Bass, or Bb Soprano)
  • Bb Bass Clarinet
  • BBb Contrabass Clarinet (alternate part available for Bb Bass. Eb Contrabass can be made upon request)

Listen

SQLF3, at my senior composition recital, May 13, 2006
performed as a septet by Alex Sramek, Oscar Esteves, Mark Alpizar, Tamara Aguilar, Ben Haeuser, Jonathan Terry, Elizabeth Eggleston

Performances

  • World Premiere:CSULB Clarinet Choir, May 4, 2005, dir. Leo Potts
  • Alex Sramek, Senior Recital, May 13, 2006, septet coordinated for the concert
  • New Music for Clarinet Choir, Claremont Clarinet Festival, June 14, 2008, dir. Margaret Thornhill (mobile edition)
  • Clarinet Classics, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, July 11, 2008, dir. Helen Goode-Castro

Program Notes

Inspired by the video game music of the 1980s and ’90s, Super Legend Quest Fantasy III takes the listener through one such hypothetical game. After pressing START, play begins in the adventurer’s idyllic home village. However, all is not well, and our hero must set out on a quest of some importance. After crossing vast, sweeping valleys, we discover a city in great peril. Answering a call for aid, the quest takes us through the haunted forest to the Castle of Eventual Doom. Atop the highest tower, a great battle ensues, and the fiendish fire-breathing dragon-monster-beast-thing is slain! Victorious, the player retrieves the stolen jewel orb scepter treasures, and sets off to return them and save the day. On the way back, we encounter the obligatory jumping level, containing spikes, lava, and bottomless pits, the origins of which to this day have not been satisfactorily explored. Finally, the hero is greeted by a victorious crowd and a promise of further adventures, when the game cartridge begins acting up. The game finally freezes, without any opportunity to save our progress. After (violently) hitting reset, the player declines to press START, so the credits roll.

Background

Super Legend Quest Fantasy III was inspired by numerous other pieces for clarinet choir. I made the observation that much of the new music for clarinet choir sounded like 8-bit-Nintendo-era video game music. The conductor of the CSU Long Beach clarinet choir at the time, Leo Potts, offered to premiere any clarinet choir music I might write. Honored by the suggestion, I was determined to write a piece "that doesn't sound like video game music." Eager to apply "serious contemporary chops" to the project, I began brainstorming all sorts of extended techniques, clarinet reassembly, horrific squawks, etc. Then I ditched that idea entirely, took a complete 180 and decided that if music for clarinet choir is going to sound like video game music, I may as well intend for it to sound like video game music. After that (and numerous hours of Zelda 64), Super Legend Quest Fantasy III came to be. Oddly enough, the end product (to my ears) sounds considerably less like authentic video game music than the pieces it intended to outdo.