Music of the Provinces, pt. 2

Read the other parts!

Skyrim/Nords, Part 1: Music of the Provinces, pt. 1

High Rock/Bards, Part 3: Music of the Provinces, pt. 3

I was inspired by Leyawynn- and their thread here to write something cool. I'll be writing part-by-part as the mood strikes me.

This is so quaint and out of date. We really need to write a more modern revision. The spread of Opera failed in Alinor when the Thalmor rose to power, and Cyrodiil lost all of its opera halls during the Umbriel Invasion. Instead it's found a home in, of all the places, Morrowind! Ask Urag tomorrow what he thinks of turning this "copying" busy-work into a new, truly definitive edition of Music of the Provinces. -SS

2. High Rock & the Nobility

At the same time the Atmorans were becoming Nords and taking on a new acoustic tradition, the Direnni were themselves discovering song.

I have had the good fortune of speaking with Direnni nobles and being allowed to peruse their records, something which simply isn't possible with many of the musical cultures I have written about. This means I have a fairly objective first-hand historical record of the birth of Opera.

Surviving plays in the Direnni ruins in southern High Rock contain sheet music for drums, flutes and verse. Their music was very sparse at the time, often consisting of a single flute with percussive backing and a lone singer. This was a tradition used to entertain guests and traders, according to surviving Direnni nobles in High Rock, and was mostly fictional in its content. Slaves were the primary actors, with the Altmer themselves reserved for important roles, as the Bretons were, at that time, considered not to know how to carry themselves when acting as a god or king.

When the Direnni clan expanded its borders after absorbing remnants of the Ayleids of Cyrodiil, they nudged into Skyrim and added its Bardic traditions, including the use of lutes. Those Ayleids, in the meantime, had brought with them such "fixed" instruments as the Piano and Harpsichord from Cyrodiil, adding further richness to the Direnni musical canon and cementing the future of High Rock's musical culture.

In this period of acoustic upheaval, many attempts were made to incorporate the neighboring Rourken Clan's Tonal Architecture into music, but (no doubt due to the mysteriousness of the Dwemer's methods, even to their allies) such attempts always ended in disaster. Most famously, there was the Incident of the Direnni Tower, but that is a subject for another book.

Finally, this decade-long cultural experiment came to an end. The resulting style of classical High Rock music was born in Wayrest, known as "Opera" from the name of the third (and most popular) play performed in the style, a military piece focused on the then-current war with the Alessians.

Opera is most well-known for its association with High Rock plays and dramas, as well as being a uniquely Northwestern style of entertainment. As in no other place, around the Iliac Bay the family goes out to the opera, rather than paying a bard to come to their home: a necessary consequence of the heavy instruments used. However, Opera has begun to be quite popular in Cyrodiil (especially in the Heartlands and Nibenay) and Auridon in the Summerset Isles. I wager that its popularity in Summerset can only grow, whereas the variety of entertainment from around the Empire will win out among the Nedic tribes.

Musically, the piano and harpsichord of the Cyrodiil Heartlands plays a key part in composition, often playing when all other music has stopped. The flute and drum players will throw themselves in to ramp up the pace, with drums having a very important role, such that Opera has unique types of drums wholly unknown outside of High Rock. Conversely, lutes are nearly unknown in Opera. There is a strong focus on interplay of the vocalists, who are also actors, and the instrumentalists, who never take a role on stage.

As the music is most often used to create a mood, it is rare that someone will casually sing Opera they are familiar with. It's poorly suited to simple recitation, as the impact is in highly trained vocalists with talented throats. The average person must, therefore, find something better suited to their rough and uncultured voice. We will delve further into this in the next chapter.

Thoughts, suggestions? I'd love to hear them, though I've got most of the other provinces already outlined in a text file. Thanks!