Composer's Rationale Part 1: Melodies and Harmonies
Dear Reader,
As an instrumentalist, I listen to and I play a good deal of music. Music has always been what I "do." Music is my first love, I might pursue it professionally had I even more ability or had I thought I might be able to earn a monthly paycheck. Music is a beautiful thing, but sometimes I wonder, "What the hell was [Composer's name here] thinking?" In case you ever have this question on your mind, or if you have too much time on your hands, I’d like to give you a few answers.
As a composer, I profess neither talent nor originality, but I do like to think I create my music intelligently. In the following notes, I’ll tell you about pieces I reference in Twilight the Musical, my opinions of some of the songs, and whatnot.
Now, I’m going to start in chronological order—not their order in the show, but the order in which they were created, so the first song I’ll mention here is the only one actually mentioned in the book itself. It’s my personal favorite song in the show, even if it gets old after several months of listening to and playing it. This song is Edward’s big number, the Lullaby.
The Lullaby references two pieces of classical music: Johannes Brahms’ Ballade in D Minor Op. 10, No. 1, and Henryk Wieniawski’s Légende in G Minor, Op. 17. I chose each of these two pieces for a specific reason other than my opinion that they are among the finest compositions ever created.
Brahms’ Ballade falls under the category of “program music,” i.e. music that tells a story of some sort. The Ballade tells the tragic tale of a dysfunctional family—its protagonist, like that of Twilight, is named Edward. Long story short, Edward kills his father at the suggestion of his mother and then tells his mother to go burn in hell as he sails away and leaves his family. At least he’s on a boat. If you’re familiar with the piece, you’ll probably get a kick out of hearing the reference I built in—even though the stories of the two Edwards are completely unrelated, I thought the dark sonorous sound of the Ballade worked well to represent Edward’s strife, and the imageries of blood throughout the piece would fit beautifully with Twilight.
Wieniawski’s Légende is also a tragic piece of music—the Polish violin virtuoso and composer poured his grief into this work after his fiancée’s parents refused to give their consent to their marriage. Thus, the Légende tells the tale of forbidden love—its melancholy opening and its theme once again fits beautifully with the story of Twilight and the text of the Lullaby.
The second song I created for Twilight, I believe, was Who Are They?, the song that Jessica Stanley sings to Bella describing the Cullens. To be quite honest, I’m really not a fan of this song, even though I wrote both the music and the lyrics. Like I said, I don’t pretend to be a gifted composer, and this song does well to prove my point. I wrote the lyrics first (and now that I read them over, eleven months later, I’m almost embarrassed to admit they are indeed mine), and then I put them to music.
Originally, it sounded basically like music you’d hear in a circus—I had created it to give the audience a sense of how the other students in Forks viewed the Cullens as a sort of freak show—a sense of how the Cullens were “different.” I suppose the song fits the “dumb and ditsy” character of Jessica Stanley, but I still find it hard to accept I wrote such an awful song. Had we not been so pressed for time, I might have completely re-written it, but instead, I put a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, and just turned the song from a major key into its parallel minor—the song is still probably the worst in the show, but at least, (I hope), it won’t make people laugh too much or get up and leave. This song was just terribly written, and has undergone several revisions to follow more of the practical rules of choral music, but an older version appears in the show, since I had not noticed until after starting rehearsal. I needed to get music out as soon as possible with only the necessary revisions (changing it from C minor—which necessitates C6, a really high note—to F minor, where the top note is now F5, which is still pretty high, but at least in a human voice range).
My third piece of music was Jacob’s first number, Scary Stories, in which he describes to Bella the tales of the Werewolves and the Cold Ones—he doesn’t believe it’s all real quite yet, so this song also has some humor in it. From my perspective, it’s like a little kid, trying to scare his babysitter. The melody is simple, as is the chord structure, but it references a few different pieces of classical music as well, such as Franz Schubert’s Der Erlkönig, adapted from Goethe’s text. The chord structure, if I may make this hubristic comparison, is also somewhat Schubertian. Der Erlkönig tells the tale of a father riding with his son at night—the boy begins to see images of the eponymous monster, which the father tries to explain away. At the end of the song, the father finds that his child has died. In Twilight, Jacob fills the role of the skeptic, and later, Bella is the one who discovers everything is true. In Scary Stories, there is a constant triplet or eighth note beating in the right hand of the piano, like in Der Erlkönig, which gives the song a somewhat “scary” feel.
Scary Stories also references Camille Saint-Saëns’ famous poem, Danse Macabre, though not quite as much. Danse Macabre is based off a French poem by Henri Cazalis, which details a “Thriller-esque” scene in a graveyard on the eve of Halloween—Death himself plays the violin and the skeletons get out of their graves and dance. From this piece, Scary Stories borrows the tritone, also known sometimes in musicians’ circles as the “Devil’s Chord.”
After Scary Stories, I decided to write Jacob’s other number, Can She Ever Love Me?, which I like better than Scary Stories. Jacob sings this song at the end of the book, after he talks to Bella at prom. Edward has come in and rudely interrupted their conversation, and Jacob is pained to see Bella happy with Edward. Can She Ever Love Me? has a simple tune—it’s not at all difficult to sing, and it shares a good deal in common with both Scary Stories in order to keep Jacob consistent in his music, but also the Lullaby, showing that Jacob, like Edward, loves Bella and would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. I enjoyed writing this song a lot, since Jacob is my favorite character, and since I can relate well to this situation—in fact, I was going through something similar when I wrote this song. Can She Ever Love Me? has a certain simplicity to it, which reflects Jacob’s sincerity and lack of savoir-faire.
Next came the Overture, the first introductory orchestral piece. It includes references to many classical pieces, including Antonin Dvorak’s famous Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 (colloquially known as the New World Symphony), Sergei Rachmaninoff’s great Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, Op. 18, and, of course, obligatory references to music in the show itself, such as Scary Stories, Can She Ever Love Me?, and the Lullaby.
Dvorak’s New World Symphony represents a certain sort of “newness” that both Edward and Bella are experiencing: Edward and Bella are, for the first time, feeling love, and Bella, is introduced into Edward’s world, the world of vampires.
Now, I must tell you a story of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto to explain my rationale behind referencing it. When Tchaikovsky died in 1893, Sergei Rachmaninoff became severely depressed and poured his melancholy into his music. Among the pieces of this period of overwhelmingly gloomy music was Rachmaninoff's First Symphony in D Minor, which premiered in 1897 with Alexander Glazunov (who was, according to many accounts, drunk at this performance) conducting. Rachmaninoff remarked, "I am amazed—how can a man with the high talent of Glazunov conduct so badly?" Thus, the piece was poorly received, which compounded Rachmaninoff's depression to the point where he completely stopped composing for three years.
In 1900, Rachmaninoff began sessions of auto-suggestive therapy (not much unlike hypnotism) with Dr. Nikolai Dahl, whose name appears at the beginning of the score. The creation of this concerto marks Rachmaninoff's recovery from depression and from writer's block, and its instantly phenomenal reception allowed Rachmaninoff to have confidence once again. The other reason why I studied this piece so intensely is that I learned to play the first movement for a few competitions. Luckily, I won one of them, and I will have the privilege of performing it with the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra on the Ides (15th) of March in 2011.
Although Mr. Rachmaninoff might be very angry with me for drawing a comparison between himself and Edward Cullen, he's dead (although I still admire him greatly) and can't do anything about it. Edward rediscovers the sliver of his humanity, of his past, when he meets and becomes enamored with Bella, who inspires him also to create a piece of music. Small references to this piece are found throughout the piece—some more evident than others, but I’d just like to point out why they are there—I figured you’d all be fine if I didn’t go into every single one in detail.
In addition to these references, the Overture contains quotes (as an overture should) from the music in the show itself. As a composer, this is my introduction of the show for you. The piano is the clock as it strikes eight (as opposed to twelve, as it does in certain other pieces, such as the aforementioned Danse Macabre), signaling the dawn of Twilight. After a few moments of calm, I quote Jacob’s song, asking the audience, “Do you want to hear a scary story?” Without waiting for an answer, I walk the audience through the show backwards with a transition into Can She Ever Love Me?, Jacob’s other song. After this quote, I have a small passage from Edward’s Lullaby, and dies down to give way to the Ballad of the Lion and the Lamb.
The Ballad of the Lion and the Lamb, my next song, is the show’s opening choral number—it segues attaca, or without pause, from the Overture. The theme was composed concurrently with the Overture, but the song in its entirety took a little longer. The lyrics of Ballad actually began as Caroline’s sonnet assignment—only in Ms. Hoffman’s class does homework actually become useful. This song will be performed a cappella, literally “from the chapel” or “from the choir.” In modern usage, many understand the phrase as a vocal performance without accompaniment. This will use a four-part harmony with some (but not adherence) to traditional voice leading rules and such. I hope people will see a little bit of the opening number of Sweeney Todd, which I in part based this song on.
This song breaks a lot of the rules, and not on purpose, either. I was just completely ignorant as a composer of vocal music at the time. This song has since been revised from the version that will appear in the show, but people will be learning the first version for lack of time to change.
By this time, I started working on songs in pairs, so if I hit a wall with one, I could work on the other—my next pair of songs was She Made Him Smile and Could it be True. If you listen closely, you can probably tell they were written around the same time. In She Made Him Smile, the other Cullens are trying to calm down a seething Rosalie. The scene is not in Twilight, but in Midnight Sun. Could it be True uses a pretty similar chord sequence, and this is Bella’s big solo number, where she wonders about everything Jacob has told her about Edward and his family. The first time I listened to She Made Him Smile, it struck me that it sounded like the love child of For Good from Steven Schwartz’s Wicked and the title song of Beauty and the Beast. There are no particular notable or conscious classical references in either of these songs, but I think these two turned out very well.
One interesting/funny fact about Could it be True is that I changed a few chords in the sequence so that it didn’t use the same chord sequence as Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the infamous piece played by quartets at weddings everywhere—a little less-known fact is that the sequence is commonly used in many other kinds of music—it is used at least in part in many famous songs incognito including but not limited to, Let it Be, Three Little Birds, and the beloved folk ballad, One Tin Soldier. For a better explanation (and a much more humorous one, I might add), see Rob Paravonian’s video on YouTube titled “Pachelbel Rant.”
Next came The Scent of Temptation. I didn’t pair this one with another, because the accompaniment and the vocal parts were enough to handle at one time. To be honest, this song could have turned out much better—there are several classical references in this song, to the extent that one the song is nearly completely, plagiarized.
The most noticeable of these references was Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor. Part of the orchestral introduction, interludes, and nearly all of the melody are pulled from this concerto. With my vision of the song in mind, I created lyrics to fit with Tchaikovsky’s melody, one of the best, in my opinion, within all piano concerti. Interestingly enough, however, Tchaikovsky’s piece only starts in B-flat minor before it goes into D-flat major, the relative key. My song stays in the minor key for a little longer, as Edward solemnly warns Bella of the dangers of being with him. When Bella begins to sing her part, the song goes into the major key as Bella reminds him he’s not a monster.
Another piece I borrowed from in the introduction and interludes is Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto. The orchestral introduction sets up a chord structure for the soloist to come in with a haunting melody. I used this sample to keep the song in a minor key at times, and since it is a simple rhythm, it lends itself to outlining key changes, like the one from minor to major and back. This song, though not the worst, is definitely the least original, and if I had more time, I would probably try to rewrite the melody again. This is probably my only example of direct plagiarism. It should be noted that Igor Stravinsky once remarked, “Good composers don’t write, they steal.” It’s also commonly said that imitation (or in my case plagiarism) is the sincerest form of flattery.
Stuck in the Rain followed after Scent of Temptation, but there is really pretty little to say about it—it’s a fairly mediocre piece of music, in my opinion. The strings in the orchestra play col legno (with the wood of the bow) to emulate the sound of rain, but the rest of the song has no other interesting facets worth writing about for me or worth reading about for you.
Composing and Venom are the songs in my next pair—they both reference the Lullaby. As a result, these two songs are also among my favorite in the show. Composing is Alice’s solo number—she walks in on Edward composing the Lullaby, and she comforts and takes his mind off his fears of his and Bella’s future. The song stays in major as opposed to switching between major and minor as the Lullaby does. However, the beginning foreshadows the Lullaby, and parts of the melody are inversions (musically upside-down) of their counterparts in the Lullaby. This song is designed to make the Lullaby a little more familiar when it eventually appears in the show in its “full glory.”
Venom lifts the entire opening phrase from our Lullaby as a reminder of Edward’s promise to never let Bella go. In this song, Bella is about to “die” (i.e. become a vampire) from James’ venomous bite. Bella seems to be fine with the idea despite the enormous pain, but Edward won’t let it happen. (Personally, I think Edward is a complete fool for this reason.) The use of the III+ (pronounced augmented chord) chord in a minor key, gives this song its tension. The D-flat chord in the key of C minor is also borrowed from Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. It appears also in Speak Softly, Love from The Godfather, which lends certain elements of style to this song as well. My mom made an interesting comparison between these movies and Twilight, and suggested a reference to it in the show—she argued that the men in Godfather were parallels to Edward, dangerous vulnerable only to their wives (or in Edward’s case, his future wife at this point). Their love can end at any minute, be it by the police apprehending the men or by Edward’s short loss of control. Of course, the comparison is a little bit of a stretch, but I like it, and I see it.
The finale, I Dream of Forever, recycles melodies from The Lullaby and the Ballad for a few reasons—first, I recycle melodies quite often for scene changes and such, because it gives the show a sense of cohesion. Finales generally recycle melodies for this reason, such as in Phantom of the Opera, Anything Goes, and Wicked, to name a few. The other reason is that by this point in time, I’ll admit I didn’t have much inspiration for another melody. The Lullaby does, however, function to symbolize Bella and Edward’s love, and the reuse of the Ballad serves to close the show, sandwiched between two choral numbers. Unfortunately, it was cut from the show for lack of rehearsal.
The scene changes are unbearably repetitive, recycling material for the show. I'm less pleased with them than I am with the rest of the score, especially because they were written in something of a rush. I do, however enjoy some of them. One issue was the unpredictability of the length of each scene change, which I assume would be better with more rehearsals. They sample, most frequently, from Stuck in the Rain, the Lullaby, and Could it be True.
Thanks for reading,
Ian Duh
As an instrumentalist, I listen to and I play a good deal of music. Music has always been what I "do." Music is my first love, I might pursue it professionally had I even more ability or had I thought I might be able to earn a monthly paycheck. Music is a beautiful thing, but sometimes I wonder, "What the hell was [Composer's name here] thinking?" In case you ever have this question on your mind, or if you have too much time on your hands, I’d like to give you a few answers.
As a composer, I profess neither talent nor originality, but I do like to think I create my music intelligently. In the following notes, I’ll tell you about pieces I reference in Twilight the Musical, my opinions of some of the songs, and whatnot.
Now, I’m going to start in chronological order—not their order in the show, but the order in which they were created, so the first song I’ll mention here is the only one actually mentioned in the book itself. It’s my personal favorite song in the show, even if it gets old after several months of listening to and playing it. This song is Edward’s big number, the Lullaby.
The Lullaby references two pieces of classical music: Johannes Brahms’ Ballade in D Minor Op. 10, No. 1, and Henryk Wieniawski’s Légende in G Minor, Op. 17. I chose each of these two pieces for a specific reason other than my opinion that they are among the finest compositions ever created.
Brahms’ Ballade falls under the category of “program music,” i.e. music that tells a story of some sort. The Ballade tells the tragic tale of a dysfunctional family—its protagonist, like that of Twilight, is named Edward. Long story short, Edward kills his father at the suggestion of his mother and then tells his mother to go burn in hell as he sails away and leaves his family. At least he’s on a boat. If you’re familiar with the piece, you’ll probably get a kick out of hearing the reference I built in—even though the stories of the two Edwards are completely unrelated, I thought the dark sonorous sound of the Ballade worked well to represent Edward’s strife, and the imageries of blood throughout the piece would fit beautifully with Twilight.
Wieniawski’s Légende is also a tragic piece of music—the Polish violin virtuoso and composer poured his grief into this work after his fiancée’s parents refused to give their consent to their marriage. Thus, the Légende tells the tale of forbidden love—its melancholy opening and its theme once again fits beautifully with the story of Twilight and the text of the Lullaby.
The second song I created for Twilight, I believe, was Who Are They?, the song that Jessica Stanley sings to Bella describing the Cullens. To be quite honest, I’m really not a fan of this song, even though I wrote both the music and the lyrics. Like I said, I don’t pretend to be a gifted composer, and this song does well to prove my point. I wrote the lyrics first (and now that I read them over, eleven months later, I’m almost embarrassed to admit they are indeed mine), and then I put them to music.
Originally, it sounded basically like music you’d hear in a circus—I had created it to give the audience a sense of how the other students in Forks viewed the Cullens as a sort of freak show—a sense of how the Cullens were “different.” I suppose the song fits the “dumb and ditsy” character of Jessica Stanley, but I still find it hard to accept I wrote such an awful song. Had we not been so pressed for time, I might have completely re-written it, but instead, I put a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, and just turned the song from a major key into its parallel minor—the song is still probably the worst in the show, but at least, (I hope), it won’t make people laugh too much or get up and leave. This song was just terribly written, and has undergone several revisions to follow more of the practical rules of choral music, but an older version appears in the show, since I had not noticed until after starting rehearsal. I needed to get music out as soon as possible with only the necessary revisions (changing it from C minor—which necessitates C6, a really high note—to F minor, where the top note is now F5, which is still pretty high, but at least in a human voice range).
My third piece of music was Jacob’s first number, Scary Stories, in which he describes to Bella the tales of the Werewolves and the Cold Ones—he doesn’t believe it’s all real quite yet, so this song also has some humor in it. From my perspective, it’s like a little kid, trying to scare his babysitter. The melody is simple, as is the chord structure, but it references a few different pieces of classical music as well, such as Franz Schubert’s Der Erlkönig, adapted from Goethe’s text. The chord structure, if I may make this hubristic comparison, is also somewhat Schubertian. Der Erlkönig tells the tale of a father riding with his son at night—the boy begins to see images of the eponymous monster, which the father tries to explain away. At the end of the song, the father finds that his child has died. In Twilight, Jacob fills the role of the skeptic, and later, Bella is the one who discovers everything is true. In Scary Stories, there is a constant triplet or eighth note beating in the right hand of the piano, like in Der Erlkönig, which gives the song a somewhat “scary” feel.
Scary Stories also references Camille Saint-Saëns’ famous poem, Danse Macabre, though not quite as much. Danse Macabre is based off a French poem by Henri Cazalis, which details a “Thriller-esque” scene in a graveyard on the eve of Halloween—Death himself plays the violin and the skeletons get out of their graves and dance. From this piece, Scary Stories borrows the tritone, also known sometimes in musicians’ circles as the “Devil’s Chord.”
After Scary Stories, I decided to write Jacob’s other number, Can She Ever Love Me?, which I like better than Scary Stories. Jacob sings this song at the end of the book, after he talks to Bella at prom. Edward has come in and rudely interrupted their conversation, and Jacob is pained to see Bella happy with Edward. Can She Ever Love Me? has a simple tune—it’s not at all difficult to sing, and it shares a good deal in common with both Scary Stories in order to keep Jacob consistent in his music, but also the Lullaby, showing that Jacob, like Edward, loves Bella and would go to the ends of the earth to protect her. I enjoyed writing this song a lot, since Jacob is my favorite character, and since I can relate well to this situation—in fact, I was going through something similar when I wrote this song. Can She Ever Love Me? has a certain simplicity to it, which reflects Jacob’s sincerity and lack of savoir-faire.
Next came the Overture, the first introductory orchestral piece. It includes references to many classical pieces, including Antonin Dvorak’s famous Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 (colloquially known as the New World Symphony), Sergei Rachmaninoff’s great Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, Op. 18, and, of course, obligatory references to music in the show itself, such as Scary Stories, Can She Ever Love Me?, and the Lullaby.
Dvorak’s New World Symphony represents a certain sort of “newness” that both Edward and Bella are experiencing: Edward and Bella are, for the first time, feeling love, and Bella, is introduced into Edward’s world, the world of vampires.
Now, I must tell you a story of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto to explain my rationale behind referencing it. When Tchaikovsky died in 1893, Sergei Rachmaninoff became severely depressed and poured his melancholy into his music. Among the pieces of this period of overwhelmingly gloomy music was Rachmaninoff's First Symphony in D Minor, which premiered in 1897 with Alexander Glazunov (who was, according to many accounts, drunk at this performance) conducting. Rachmaninoff remarked, "I am amazed—how can a man with the high talent of Glazunov conduct so badly?" Thus, the piece was poorly received, which compounded Rachmaninoff's depression to the point where he completely stopped composing for three years.
In 1900, Rachmaninoff began sessions of auto-suggestive therapy (not much unlike hypnotism) with Dr. Nikolai Dahl, whose name appears at the beginning of the score. The creation of this concerto marks Rachmaninoff's recovery from depression and from writer's block, and its instantly phenomenal reception allowed Rachmaninoff to have confidence once again. The other reason why I studied this piece so intensely is that I learned to play the first movement for a few competitions. Luckily, I won one of them, and I will have the privilege of performing it with the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra on the Ides (15th) of March in 2011.
Although Mr. Rachmaninoff might be very angry with me for drawing a comparison between himself and Edward Cullen, he's dead (although I still admire him greatly) and can't do anything about it. Edward rediscovers the sliver of his humanity, of his past, when he meets and becomes enamored with Bella, who inspires him also to create a piece of music. Small references to this piece are found throughout the piece—some more evident than others, but I’d just like to point out why they are there—I figured you’d all be fine if I didn’t go into every single one in detail.
In addition to these references, the Overture contains quotes (as an overture should) from the music in the show itself. As a composer, this is my introduction of the show for you. The piano is the clock as it strikes eight (as opposed to twelve, as it does in certain other pieces, such as the aforementioned Danse Macabre), signaling the dawn of Twilight. After a few moments of calm, I quote Jacob’s song, asking the audience, “Do you want to hear a scary story?” Without waiting for an answer, I walk the audience through the show backwards with a transition into Can She Ever Love Me?, Jacob’s other song. After this quote, I have a small passage from Edward’s Lullaby, and dies down to give way to the Ballad of the Lion and the Lamb.
The Ballad of the Lion and the Lamb, my next song, is the show’s opening choral number—it segues attaca, or without pause, from the Overture. The theme was composed concurrently with the Overture, but the song in its entirety took a little longer. The lyrics of Ballad actually began as Caroline’s sonnet assignment—only in Ms. Hoffman’s class does homework actually become useful. This song will be performed a cappella, literally “from the chapel” or “from the choir.” In modern usage, many understand the phrase as a vocal performance without accompaniment. This will use a four-part harmony with some (but not adherence) to traditional voice leading rules and such. I hope people will see a little bit of the opening number of Sweeney Todd, which I in part based this song on.
This song breaks a lot of the rules, and not on purpose, either. I was just completely ignorant as a composer of vocal music at the time. This song has since been revised from the version that will appear in the show, but people will be learning the first version for lack of time to change.
By this time, I started working on songs in pairs, so if I hit a wall with one, I could work on the other—my next pair of songs was She Made Him Smile and Could it be True. If you listen closely, you can probably tell they were written around the same time. In She Made Him Smile, the other Cullens are trying to calm down a seething Rosalie. The scene is not in Twilight, but in Midnight Sun. Could it be True uses a pretty similar chord sequence, and this is Bella’s big solo number, where she wonders about everything Jacob has told her about Edward and his family. The first time I listened to She Made Him Smile, it struck me that it sounded like the love child of For Good from Steven Schwartz’s Wicked and the title song of Beauty and the Beast. There are no particular notable or conscious classical references in either of these songs, but I think these two turned out very well.
One interesting/funny fact about Could it be True is that I changed a few chords in the sequence so that it didn’t use the same chord sequence as Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the infamous piece played by quartets at weddings everywhere—a little less-known fact is that the sequence is commonly used in many other kinds of music—it is used at least in part in many famous songs incognito including but not limited to, Let it Be, Three Little Birds, and the beloved folk ballad, One Tin Soldier. For a better explanation (and a much more humorous one, I might add), see Rob Paravonian’s video on YouTube titled “Pachelbel Rant.”
Next came The Scent of Temptation. I didn’t pair this one with another, because the accompaniment and the vocal parts were enough to handle at one time. To be honest, this song could have turned out much better—there are several classical references in this song, to the extent that one the song is nearly completely, plagiarized.
The most noticeable of these references was Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in B-flat Minor. Part of the orchestral introduction, interludes, and nearly all of the melody are pulled from this concerto. With my vision of the song in mind, I created lyrics to fit with Tchaikovsky’s melody, one of the best, in my opinion, within all piano concerti. Interestingly enough, however, Tchaikovsky’s piece only starts in B-flat minor before it goes into D-flat major, the relative key. My song stays in the minor key for a little longer, as Edward solemnly warns Bella of the dangers of being with him. When Bella begins to sing her part, the song goes into the major key as Bella reminds him he’s not a monster.
Another piece I borrowed from in the introduction and interludes is Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto. The orchestral introduction sets up a chord structure for the soloist to come in with a haunting melody. I used this sample to keep the song in a minor key at times, and since it is a simple rhythm, it lends itself to outlining key changes, like the one from minor to major and back. This song, though not the worst, is definitely the least original, and if I had more time, I would probably try to rewrite the melody again. This is probably my only example of direct plagiarism. It should be noted that Igor Stravinsky once remarked, “Good composers don’t write, they steal.” It’s also commonly said that imitation (or in my case plagiarism) is the sincerest form of flattery.
Stuck in the Rain followed after Scent of Temptation, but there is really pretty little to say about it—it’s a fairly mediocre piece of music, in my opinion. The strings in the orchestra play col legno (with the wood of the bow) to emulate the sound of rain, but the rest of the song has no other interesting facets worth writing about for me or worth reading about for you.
Composing and Venom are the songs in my next pair—they both reference the Lullaby. As a result, these two songs are also among my favorite in the show. Composing is Alice’s solo number—she walks in on Edward composing the Lullaby, and she comforts and takes his mind off his fears of his and Bella’s future. The song stays in major as opposed to switching between major and minor as the Lullaby does. However, the beginning foreshadows the Lullaby, and parts of the melody are inversions (musically upside-down) of their counterparts in the Lullaby. This song is designed to make the Lullaby a little more familiar when it eventually appears in the show in its “full glory.”
Venom lifts the entire opening phrase from our Lullaby as a reminder of Edward’s promise to never let Bella go. In this song, Bella is about to “die” (i.e. become a vampire) from James’ venomous bite. Bella seems to be fine with the idea despite the enormous pain, but Edward won’t let it happen. (Personally, I think Edward is a complete fool for this reason.) The use of the III+ (pronounced augmented chord) chord in a minor key, gives this song its tension. The D-flat chord in the key of C minor is also borrowed from Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. It appears also in Speak Softly, Love from The Godfather, which lends certain elements of style to this song as well. My mom made an interesting comparison between these movies and Twilight, and suggested a reference to it in the show—she argued that the men in Godfather were parallels to Edward, dangerous vulnerable only to their wives (or in Edward’s case, his future wife at this point). Their love can end at any minute, be it by the police apprehending the men or by Edward’s short loss of control. Of course, the comparison is a little bit of a stretch, but I like it, and I see it.
The finale, I Dream of Forever, recycles melodies from The Lullaby and the Ballad for a few reasons—first, I recycle melodies quite often for scene changes and such, because it gives the show a sense of cohesion. Finales generally recycle melodies for this reason, such as in Phantom of the Opera, Anything Goes, and Wicked, to name a few. The other reason is that by this point in time, I’ll admit I didn’t have much inspiration for another melody. The Lullaby does, however, function to symbolize Bella and Edward’s love, and the reuse of the Ballad serves to close the show, sandwiched between two choral numbers. Unfortunately, it was cut from the show for lack of rehearsal.
The scene changes are unbearably repetitive, recycling material for the show. I'm less pleased with them than I am with the rest of the score, especially because they were written in something of a rush. I do, however enjoy some of them. One issue was the unpredictability of the length of each scene change, which I assume would be better with more rehearsals. They sample, most frequently, from Stuck in the Rain, the Lullaby, and Could it be True.
Thanks for reading,
Ian Duh