Pharaoh's Tomb (String Orchestra Gr. 4)

Pharaoh's Tomb is a captivating musical journey among the sphinxes and great pyramids starts with an ominous introduction and builds to a massive musical frenzy of familiar Egyptian motifs. Students will enjoy mastering Middle Eastern scale patterns, dynamic variations, and a plethora of accidentals, along with changes in key, time signature, and tempo. Starting slowly and mysteriously, the piece finishes with a furious staccatissimo (jeté) ostinato juxtaposed over chromatic themes based on earlier melodies, utilizing exaggerated crescendos and decrescendos, to bring the entire composition to a feverish climax.

Genre: String Orchestra | # of Players: 8-8-5-5-5
Series: Ruby Orchestra Series
Level: 4 | Duration: 3:25

Instrumentation
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Contrabass

Program Notes
I’ve always loved Middle Eastern music and scale patterns, both as a music student and a music teacher. I had so much fun composing “Myth of the Golden Camel” that I thought I would take some similar ideas and expand upon them. This piece is meant to evoke the wonder and trepidation felt by the original Egyptologists as they embarked upon their first awesome archaeological adventures throughout the Sahara Desert.

– B.S.