"Moor and Mead Hall" is a musical version of the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon epic BEOWULF. It is focused on the setting of the first two thirds of the poem: the portion of Denmark in which Hrothgar has built his great mead hall, Heorot. Close to the hall is a moor, on which live two troll-like monsters, Grendel and his nameless mother.

The piece imagines the building of the hall and the events that follow it. Three instruments are featured: a low drone made with the "strings" function on a digital piano, a lever harp, and a whistle. The drone represents the moor. It is a constant throughout the piece; even when the other instruments take over, the drone remains. The whistle is Grendel. I may be a little strange in choosing a whistle to represent a monster, but Grendel is a natural inhabitant of the moor, and no matter how ugly and frightening the humans find him, he was there before they were. The harp is the hall. I originally wanted to have an Anglo-Saxon lyre to represent the hall but...well, let's say that I ordered one, and it exploded. Therefore, I'm playing the harp in the range of the lyre, sticking to seven notes only (many Anglo-Saxon lyres had six strings, but some had seven, and I am weak). The lyre is an instrument that features in the poem itself (it is called a "harp" there), and it therefore simultaneously embodies the hall, the harper, and the whole concept of storytelling.

The piece begins with Grendel on the moor. This section is gentle and harmonious; Grendel is where he needs to be. The building of the hall is introduced by the entry of the harp. The harp and the whistle sometimes harmonise, but they are on their own paths, and as the piece progresses, they clash more often. The harp gradually takes over, pushing the whistle into the background. At the same time, the whistle becomes harsher and more dissonant as Grendel begins to rebel against the new presence on the moor. He attacks the hall towards the end, and the whistle and the harp come together in battle. There are some squeaks and dissonant high notes in this section; I wasn't trying to make it pretty. The birdlike sounds of the whistle from the opening of the piece have decayed into rage and vengeance, the presence of the Danes changing not just the feel of the landscape but the behaviour of its inhabitants. In the poem, Grendel is portrayed as resenting the hall and, in particular, the sound of the harp. My piece ends with his resentment intact and his vengeance begun, as thirty men lie dead, and the peace of the hall is shattered. The last notes of the harp, the whistle, and the drone all clash, as the landscape has slid into disharmony with itself.