Old Age

The composition process of Old Age was bittersweet. It felt hard to collate the facing of death with the fulfilment of a life lived, and I wanted something neither overtly sad nor happy, yet complementary to the previous pieces. An early draft introduced too many new motifs, without the time to fully materialise them, so in an attempt to look back at one’s life, I recycled themes from previous pieces. One example is the section beginning at bar 38, which takes the main theme of Adulthood, and reimagines it as a minuet. This preserved the impressionistic style while achieving a sense of reminiscence. The piece ends enigmatically, with two #9 chords (B♭ Major and E♭ Major) chosen for the ambiguity of their unresolved nature, allowing the work to flow back into Childhood whilst also offering a sense of finality that closes the piece. Wider Context & Conclusion The resulting compositions are a fusion between modern and classical compositional practices. This pushes the work away from a historical style- based composition and towards contemporary New Age and film-scoring practices, with modal harmonies and the setting of music to visual art. This context is significant, as there are parallels between my compositional intent and that of Thomas Cole, as he breached away from European painting traditions. Specifically, these pieces draw from Romantic, Impressionist and contemporary compositions whilst maintaining a personal voice through their use of modulatory sequences (Adulthood, bars 17-20 for an example), and unorthodox configurations (Youth, bars 26-30). This project acts as both a tribute to Cole’s paintings and to my own personal growth as a composer, as the journey has both improved my ability to transcribe my improvisations and offered insights on how to go about writing music for visual media.