Joy Comes in 'Mourning'

Joy Comes in 'Mourning' is a piece for three string players that serves as a reflection on the experiences of a music student in the collegiate environment. The piece, alluding to a phrase found in the Hebrew Psalms, reflects on the inner turmoil and eventual overcoming of pain, process of recovery, and result of joy in the end. Structured in Rondo-allegro form, the piece guides listeners through the composer's introspective journey. It begins with a dodecaphonic canon that pictures the composers internal reflection acting as the first two themes motivic material. It then transitions to a frenetic section of pizzicati, and concludes with a broad statement of hopeful anticipation looking into the future.

Hello @Gowans Music and welcome to the forum!

I was so pleasantly surprised by this piece!  The way it starts is so akin to a piece of night music by Bartok.  But it only uses its dodecaphony as a momentary tool in a total harmonic arsenal that is much more adept than a systematic twelve-tone-row.  I do have to say my favorite part is the Vivace Pizzicato section.  This also makes me think of Bartok somewhat, even though there don't seem to be any Bartok Pizzicato's in it.  But the kind of angular melody you fashion makes me think of folk music.  And the quintal pizzicato's bring to mind music for fiddle.  Although playing those double-stopped 5ths isn't as easy for the strings to execute as it might seem.  They'd have to barre those chords and producing 5ths that are in-tune might be a bit more difficult than anticipated.  But I loved how the piece transformed towards the end into a more tonal piece with some great chromatic embellishments as souvenir of the dodecaphony of the beginning.  And the transition to the tonal part is well mediated by the middle parts.   I also love the ending - you managed to marry well the dissonance from the beginning with the tonal ending in a perfectly chosen D major #9, b13 chord.  Thanks for sharing!