Departure (from 'Music for a Story-Telling')

Written in 1991 / Recorded in 1991 and 1995

Basically, as far as the music concerns, my conceptual work titled Music for a Story-Telling is a collection of re-workings of my past compositions written in 1991; either works I wrote for a band that couldn't exist long enough to perform it, and/or works for a students’ theatrical project called Zone. This tune is solely based on a theme tune originally written for the latter occasion.

When the tune was initially written, it was meant to be Poet's Theme for the said theatrical project. At that stage, the project was yet ongoing but the director, who was one of my close friends in those days, had given me a rough outline of the story to be performed and I thought it would be beneficial to write a theme for every main character that included the Poet. Despite I wrote this theme for the character's entrance (intro) and main body for his performance -probably a poetry reading - the director rejected to use this tune and alternated with a demo recording of his own original track for the former, and another original tune from mine for the latter, which was written almost spontaneously while we were rehearsing in the studio.

Three years later, when the tune was converted to Music for a Story-Telling, I thought this tune can be used without making any change for introducing Suetrea the Poet in its Part Two. Nonetheless, when I brought it to my band called Culotte for recording purpose, the drummer exercised his creative side and managed to change the impression of the tune dramatically.

In this video, I tried to present both versions as naturally as possible, especially focusing on preserving the slightly jazzy atmosphere in the original intro and the difference made by the drummer in Culotte's version.

In the story line, this tune is effectively the opening track of the Part Two, following its Overture, which is instrumental. It features Narrator, who introduces a new character Suetrea to present his case as a captive poet, who would be enticed by his inmate Kelp the Intruder for the Departure.