Context

The Mourning Tree from Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture by Jessica Curry

Jessica Curry is an award-winning British video game music composer. In 2016 she won a BAFTA award for her score for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.

It is a story-based adventure game which takes place in a small English village whose inhabitants have mysteriously disappeared.

The Mourning Tree by Jessica Curry

Listen For

  • Simple broken chord piano accompaniment
  • Treble voice (young boy) singing the solo melody. The phrasing, pitch range and choice of voice-type sound church-like.
  • At 00:28 the strings enter with sustained notes and from 00:57 playing a counter-melody.
  • 3/4 time signature
  • Although the music is written in a minor key, it has a modal flavour as the raised seventh we would expect to hear is sometimes natural and sometimes sharpened.
  • At 01:15 accompanying voices enter for a brief ending passage.

Things To Consider

  • How might you create a pastoral scene using a combination of voice, piano and strings? Could you start with a simple melody using even phrases, like Curry’s, and explore the texture and tonality?

Image credit: Simon Wilkes