Affinity by Deon Vozov

When I started this composition, I'd conceived it as a meditation piece, but it became too tuneful for that, I think -- unless you like your meditations very brief and very emotional. Musically, I was interested in maintaining a steady momentum (if 68 bpm can be said to be momentum) with the relentless gran cassa and fickle timpani, while allowing the melodies to flow languidly. Additionally, I had some vague ideas about using filtering modulation under small orchestra. Most importantly, however, I have of late been renewing my love affair with the viola, and I wanted to listen to how it reacts, compositionally speaking, when the violin comes in to steal its thunder. The poor cello in this piece is really more a lady-in-waiting than an actual member of the court, but I noted how the viola and violin create a kind of pas de deux which exemplified the substance of affinity that I sought to bring forward. How handy! Lastly, I'm ambivalent about the first eight bars, which is a consolidation of a much longer intro I wrote when i had imagined this as a meditation piece. There's something all wrong about an 8-bar intro for a piece like this, but everything else I worked with felt forced or...well, yes, forced. And perhaps a bit smug. I imagine that I'll rewrite this intro when I expand the composition at a later date before recording. Oh, and lastly: emotionally speaking, I feel that this is a very private piece of music, which is all the more reason to let it go and note how I feel afterwards. No one ever said being a composer would be safe.