Listen to the work

An additional audio pronunciation guide to the Old Norse text of this work is included in all score purchases. The audio files are in mp3 format.

About the work

In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live. It was the valkyrie who would ultimately bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla. Translated from Old Norse valkyrja means "chooser of the slain".

Valkyries appear often in the Poetic Edda, a book of poems compiled in the 13th century from many earlier sources, and are described as the daughters of royalty, sometimes even accompanied by ravens.

It is not hard to imagine then that, looking out over the slain on the field of battle, Norseman would have seen carrion birds circling and diving over their fallen comrades and envisioned that it was indeed these immortal maidens escorting the dead to the heavens. This work Valkryie is meant to convey these thoughts and should be sung with great strength from beginning to end.

Commissioned by Morna Edmundson and Elektra Women’s Choir with generous assistance from the Diane Loomer Commissioning Fund for Elektra Women’s Choir and Maureen Ciarniello 2015.