Submergio Viol (Duo for Violin and Viola)

The world is webbed with invisible lines. You’ve crossed one. Tighten them, and it would split like a fruit.

Chamber Music from the Unterzee ( track 3 / 21 )

from the Sunless Sea video game soundtrack by Maribeth Solomon and Brent Barkman

arranged for violin/viola or violin/cello –

( downloadable sheet music with parts, alternates, score ) ( listen )

post & track analysis down below!

The first entry in a new project I’m hoping to start, featuring arrangements of the stellar Sunless Sea soundtrack for different chamber music groups! I’m hella excited about it. There are gonna be some weird-ass orchestrations (”Sultry” for bassoon and string quartet), strange instrument requirements (”Khan’s Heart” for erhu and chamber orchestra), some stuff I’ve never written before (”Harmonium Over Matter” for oboe/bassoon duet), and of course some classic piano solos (”Hope is an Anchor”) and string quartets (”Wolfstack Lights”). It helps that all of them are less than three minutes long, textured, and feature some really cool instrumental techniques I can’t wait to try out.

Anyways, so here’s “Submergio Viol” for violin and viola! Or violin and cello! Or viola and cello, depending on your particular mood! I quite like playing the violin part on viola, and it’s definitely doable (you still need to read treble, which is why I haven’t gone to the trouble of converting it to alto in a separate part bc Who Cares). You just lose a little bit of the fiddly sound is all. The first couple refrains really sound good with the E string that the track violin hits, lending it a rough, boisterous quality that’s really easy to get on violin by virtue of its string placement. Not so much on viola unless you’re willing to do some weird shit with your fingers. But I guess we’re viola players, so ‘weird shit with your fingers’ is a job requirement?

There’s not a lot to say, creatively speaking, about the score. The violin solo is transcribed by ear from the track itself and I just kind of shafted the viola part to act as a basso continuo. In the future it might be cool to write a theme and variations-type thing based off this melody, or at least write a version where the bottom part doesn’t get overly stomped on.

Biggest performance notes: energetic bow arm, don’t worry about bow cleanliness that much, everything is way less legato than you would think. It’s a pretty rough-and-tumble type feel that you get from the piece, a big departure from the slick smoothness of most of the other tracks. There’s a slight sixteenth-note swing at the beginning of the piece that mellows out considerably upon reaching the solo, but just keep in mind that nothing is straight in Fallen London, not even your sixteenth notes.

the track

“Submergio Viol” is a joyous, boisterious-sounding track whose main player is a violin. It’s backed up by something that sounds like a box drum and some bass/electronic elements, which gives way entirely to a violin solo that ends the piece. Not a music major, so here ‘theme’ roughly means ‘unique musical idea,’ but here’s the two main ideas of the passage:



theme 1: sea-shanty; goats, sea-salt, enthusiasm. Grace notes are more there to indicate that the violist/cellist (aka just the basso continuo lmao) should portamento up to the note. It’s a bullhorn, an announcement that you are Here and you are Alive and you are Ready to Fight. That little lick is super important to the overall tone of the piece and I’d wager that if I ever write a piano solo extension for it, I’d still keep that grace note. I’d note here that, unlike “The Surface,” zealous playing doesn’t mean at all that you should sacrifice intonation. Sloppy playing does not fiddle music make.





theme 2: onward; a quieter, more wistful conversation between two tonalities. Indecisive, almost. That feeling you get leaving London with like four blocks of fuel and a quest to find Mount Palmerston before you get shanked by the blind dude.