The Wind through the Trees, for solo piano (2000)
Duration: 4’
MP3 Player
Score excerpt
Premiere:
Leo Wanenchak, piano
Louise Shonk Kelly Recital Hall, Dublin School, Dublin, NH
Summer 2000
Performers in audio recording:
Russell Nadel, piano
Studio recording, Abington Friends School, Jenkintown, PA
Autumn 2000
Program Notes:
This composition was the result of a Walden School assignment to write a piece of programmatic music, i.e., a composition inspired by a story, event, or something concrete in the world. While I would have liked to have written something more like Beethoven’s “Pastoral” to realize this goal, due to the cruel restraint of the assignment’s due date, I decided to settle on something a bit less epic, and instead composed this piece. I hope that the leaping arpeggiated figurations and smooth dynamic contours depict something like the swirling of the leaves on a windy mid-summer day in the New Hampshire forests. If so, then I accomplished my goal.
— August 2010