WOMAN OF WINDSWEPT YEARS - Symphony Orchestra (Sosnowski)

[etLux]

david - my apologies for not getting to this sooner

Certainly, no apologies, Josh! I'm most pleased you made it by to
listen.

this is a really wonderful work, and perhaps my favorite of yours - it seems to be of a lot more personal nature than some of your previous works -

Maybe it is, maybe it is. It's not about a specific woman, so, no,
not in that regard, Josh. As I said earlier, it's really an aggregation
of various women, some whom I know personally, some of whom I
know only through reading and so on. But I would think the writing
in a piece like this perhaps says as much about the writer as it does
about the subject...

the impression i get is that this is a flashback or reflection of a moment or moments in someone's life - the opening first minute or so is quite moving...the contrasting middle section is turbulent and nicely unsettling...and i really enjoyed how the piano is the instrument to restate the opening material and sort of re-establish the original mood, as if we're coming out of the flashback to observe the more passive present

I've undoubtedly said dozens of times in one thread or another over
the past few years that what people see and hear and feel in a piece
always fascinates me -- that though they perceive a given piece
through their own personal lenses and filters and experiences and
beliefs... somehow -- always a mystery to me -- their perceptions
remain true to the core of the writing.

fabulous work, my friend!

bravo!

josh

Many thanks, Josh. I appreciate the kind comments!

All my best,




David
www.DavidSosnowski.com
.

[Fredrik]

What a beautiful Parsifal like opening, David!
A well balanced orchestration crowned with lyrical clarinet softly emanating out of the strings!

Dark tremoling basses from the troposphere roar at the bottom before a cymbal surfaces the newly created atmosphere!
Now, the gliding Sosnowski trumpet plays a variation of the trombone's just previously stated rising sixth interval, leading us forward. Somewhere a fragment of a choral is heard, embedded in the sound layer.

Arnold Schoenberg is sitting in the same room as we are right now... he is smiling! You are reminding him of his happy days in Vienna when he was composing "Pelleas und Melisande."

There are still some years left before he will travel to the United States to visit his good friend Gustav Mahler at the Metropolitan! This is the time, before Arnold writes his first atonal piece, he is still composing Romantic music. Later, the harsh Viennese audience will start riots during the performances of his string quartets... Arnold!

Back to your music! You are really successesful in bridging together Romantic orchestral colours with modern tone landscapes, uniting past and presence, like Schoenberg and his younger student Alban Berg did at the time, in the Vienna School. But like them, you also seem to be stuck with the same dilemma sometimes, the dilemma not being able to abandon tonality forever!
You have my respect for that! Not abandoning tonality totally is a good thing! Also Stravinsky knew that!

When I think of your name... I first associate It with the Bible... David and Goliath! Well!
I will not go further into that topic, just a spontanious association!

... Okay! I have come back now after a short coffee break, and I go on with my listening.

By the way, I like the white listening widget player that you have on your site! The colour white is in harmony with your music, a manifestation of pure white light, etLux!

I hear clarinets and flutes... Now I hear that soft romantic opening chord again! The orchestral clarity is kept with the discipline and stoicism of The Ancient Greeks!

Like Entanglement! This is also one of your shorter orchestral works!

This is a wonderful and beautiful piece of art, a sublime vibrating tone painting, a piece of music history!
Fred

[etLux]

Hi Fred,

Thanks for spending so much time with this, my friend.
I think you're well on your way to a novel, here... lol!

What a beautiful Parsifal like opening, David!
A well balanced orchestration crowned with lyrical clarinet softly emanating out of the strings!

There's no escaping Wagner and Mahler. They already
wrote everything, so the rest of us are reduced to
theft.

Dark tremoling basses from the troposphere roar at the bottom before a cymbal surfaces the newly created atmosphere!
Now, the gliding Sosnowski trumpet plays a variation of the trombone's just previously stated rising sixth interval, leading us forward. Somewhere a fragment of a choral is heard, embedded in the sound layer.

Arnold Schoenberg is sitting in the same room as we are right now... he is smiling! You are reminding him of his happy days in Vienna when he was composing "Pelleas und Melisande."

I've been listening to a lot of Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg
in the last years. There's a beauty in both (particularly Berg,
for me) that I don't think you can really love until you've
gone down the road a few years.

There are still some years left before he will travel to the United States to visit his good friend Gustav Mahler at the Metropolitan! This is the time, before Arnold writes his first atonal piece, he is still composing Romantic music. Later, the harsh Viennese audience will start riots during the performances of his string quartets... Arnold!

Back to your music! You are really successesful in bridging together Romantic orchestral colours with modern tone landscapes, uniting past and presence, like Schoenberg and his younger student Alban Berg did at the time, in the Vienna School. But like them, you also seem to be stuck with the same dilemma sometimes, the dilemma not being able to abandon tonality forever!
You have my respect for that! Not abandoning tonality totally is a good thing! Also Stravinsky knew that!

Everything I write is strictly tonal. (So is most of Berg -- he just
never mentioned.) I'd no more readily abandon five hundred
years of Western musical heritage than would I willingly chop
off my foot with an ax. Yet, many people insist I write atonally
or untonally or anti-tonally or post-tonally or...

The simple fact is, what I do is a logical outgrowth of all the
work the great Masters have done, a stepping forward off their
grand tonal foundations.

History is littered with examples of such expansions of the
language, received at the time often with brutal derision --
which, of course, are now routine parts of our tonal vocabulary.

A hundred years from now, the sorts of things I do will
probably be the stuff of pop songs... lol! Maybe they already
are...

When I think of your name... I first associate It with the Bible... David and Goliath! Well!
I will not go further into that topic, just a spontanious association!

... Okay! I have come back now after a short coffee break, and I go on with my listening.

By the way, I like the white listening widget player that you have on your site! The colour white is in harmony with your music, a manifestation of pure white light, etLux!

Thank you, my friend. I'm pleased you like the player
dingus -- a few people have had difficulty with it, though;
so I think I'm going to add back direct links to the .mp3
files, too, the next time I revise the site. Also, one of
the downsides of just the player is, people can't download
the pieces.

I hear clarinets and flutes... Now I hear that soft romantic opening chord again! The orchestral clarity is kept with the discipline and stoicism of The Ancient Greeks!

Like Entanglement! This is also one of your shorter orchestral works!

This is a wonderful and beautiful piece of art, a sublime vibrating tone painting, a piece of music history!

Thanks again for spending so much time with this piece,
Fredrik!

All the best,



David
-----
David Sosnowski
www.DavidSosnowski.com

[Jan Frans]

Dear David,

Just a quick note to join the chorus of praise; it's a fantastic piece. The GPS also sounds great. I particularly liked the way the piano both blends in with and drifts atop the orchestra, in some ways like a commentary on the music.

Best,
Jan

[etLux]

Dear David,

Just a quick note to join the chorus of praise; it's a fantastic piece. The GPS also sounds great. I particularly liked the way the piano both blends in with and drifts atop the orchestra, in some ways like a commentary on the music.

Best,
Jan

Many thanks for the kind comments, Jan!

I've come to think of the piano as a standard part of the
symphonic orchestra, as essential as woodwinds, brass,
percussion and strings.

There are those who might reasonably disagree, of course;
but it may help keep a few pianists off the unemployment
line... lol.

All the best,



David
-----
David Sosnowski
www.DavidSosnowski.com

[pretty women]

There are so many gestures that, by now, are familiar in your work: the bluesy slides at just the right moment, the outbursts of the solo piano as it emerges from the orchestral texture, and an underlying lyricism. The opening reminded me of Catherine in Winter - the same subject, perhaps? The way the piece evolves into a more complex fabric, then pulls away, yet always with a forward momentum is a pleasure. And such an ending - it would have been tempting to have a kind of lush "resolution", but clearly, here, the wind is still active, sweeping, and promising growth yet to come.

This is just a first impression. I'll have to come back again, listen some more, and then, perhaps be coherent...If you haven't already figured it out, I really enjoyed this. Writing of this sort demands active listening -which means repeated listening, and that is something I intend to do.

[etLux]

A new name in our forum -- welcome!

There are so many gestures that, by now, are familiar in your work: the bluesy slides at just the right moment, the outbursts of the solo piano as it emerges from the orchestral texture, and an underlying lyricism. The opening reminded me of Catherine in Winter - the same subject, perhaps?

A new name, perhaps, but you've certainly been
doing some astute listening; for which I thank you.

Catherine is a study of my lovely wife; but Woman
is a more general essay. There's no individual
subject; but, rather, reflection on the beauty and
depth and strength that the passage of years bestows
on many women.

The way the piece evolves into a more complex fabric, then pulls away, yet always with a forward momentum is a pleasure. And such an ending - it would have been tempting to have a kind of lush "resolution", but clearly, here, the wind is still active, sweeping, and promising growth yet to come.

Yes. The foundations are made; but atop them,
years endow an ability to flexibly synthesize newer
-- and often wiser -- conclusions about reality.
Growth continues; but the basis of experience
guides and colors it in a manner beyond that of
which youth may partake.

The passage of time and the approach to the
close of life are not encumbrances, but gifts.

This is just a first impression. I'll have to come back again, listen some more, and then, perhaps be coherent...If you haven't already figured it out, I really enjoyed this. Writing of this sort demands active listening -which means repeated listening, and that is something I intend to do.

Thank you for such a thoughtful post on this piece!

All my best,



David
-----
David Sosnowski
www.DavidSosnowski.com