Four Pictures of Mid-Winter Boston
ensemble piano trio
duration 12 mins
written March 2017
written for Horszowski Trio
premiered 15th April, 2017, Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music
On the morning of March 14th 2017, I woke to a devastatingly beautiful scene: a snowstorm laying waste to Boston. Every brick, every window, and every bare branch seemed to be disintegrating into white dust. In that moment, the dichotomy between sight and sound struck me: for all the rage and violence of the scene outside, it was unsettlingly quiet, and within me stirred a certain poignancy that could only be quelled by music. The first notes I improvised on my keyboard are the very same ones that open this piece. Like the title says, this work comprises four vignettes of winter scenes. I've written a short prose to each movement to give listeners a gentle push: from thereon, one should let one's imagination take flight.
i. watching the snowstorm
from my bedside window
the quietest morning of the year
ii. a snowball fight! a car honks:
breathless, we run across the land
iii. the storm plows, relentless
through the afternoon
iv. an evening paean to solitude
the westering sun reclines
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