Leeds Devil NOCTURNE (Flute & Piano)

Leeds Devil Nocturne for flute and Paino - PDF
 
Duration: approximately 12 minutes
Total pages of music: 16 score pages, plus 8 page flute part
(File contains additional pages with covers, program notes, etc.)
 
About the work:
One of North America’s oldest folk tales, the legend of the Leeds Devil dates back nearly 300 years. More commonly known as the Jersey Devil, versions of the story can be traced back to the Lenni-Lenape indian tribe that occupied areas of southern New Jersey, naming a particular region of the pine barrens the “place of the dragon”. In perhaps the most famous version of the story, a woman known as mother Leeds gave birth to twelve children during her life, and upon learning she would have a thirteenth exclaimed “let it be a devil!”. On a stormy night in 1735, Mother Leeds went into an exceptionally difficult labor and is said to have given birth to a monstrosity with wings, cloven hooves, and a tail. It supposedly killed the midwife (and many others in some versions of the story) before letting out a horrible shriek, flying up the chimney, out of the house, and into the eerie pine barrens.
 
Leeds Devil Nocturne for flute and piano is comprised of four major sections. The piece is composed around a few specific harmonies and motives, and is a musical imagining of the Leeds Devil Legend. The work was commissioned for, and is dedicated to, Mary Kay Fink and Nicholas Underhill.