Program Note:

The first movement of the cycle, Still Life, was composed to evoke the power and intensity of the painting by Flemish artist Joris van Son, A vanitas still life. This still life painting presents an enigmatic duality of subjects locked in time, with the subject of change presented in vanitas works being represented by a skull and fruit. Other various subjects within the painting hint at both sides of this inevitable coin, such as the gun, a heavy-handed reminder of death, or the various musical objects, an allusion to the pleasures that this style of painting found to be frivolous. The composition begins as a way to hold true to these feelings, with a rather muted beginning with a small development. Then the second half bursts alive as if the painting is recalling all that once was before, eventually returning to its captured state and reminder that though life is powerful, death is inevitable.   

The second movement, Spirit in the Fields, is an imaginative take on what it would be like for a spirit once trapped to be transported into the world of Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Cypresses. This newfound freedom to explore a vast landscape, flowing with the wind, and crossing golden wheat fields. Each aspect is represented with flowing scalar lines and grand melodic ideas.