"...the weakening eye of day"
Peter W. Knell
About this work:
"...the weakening eye of day" was primarily composed between September and December of 1994, though the first sketches appeared in July and minor revisions occurred during the first half of 1995. It was first performed by the Hungarian Radio Orchestra under the baton of János Kovács.
The title stems from a poem by Thomas Hardy, "The Darkling Thrush", which was literally written on the eve of the twentieth century. In this poem, Hardy laments the passing from Romanticism to modernism and looks to the bleakness of the pending century, all the while recognizing its unavoidability. The music seeks to reconcile the rigorous demands of modernism, while at the same time subsuming them into a Romantic context. It has been awarded a BMI Student Composers Award, a special "Commendation of Excellence" in the ASCAP Foundation Rudolf Nissim Competition, and Second Prize in the First International Composers' Competition "In Memoriam Zoltán Kodály".
"...the weakening eye of day" is dedicated to the memory of Stephen Albert, my first true compositional mentor, who's life was cut tragically short in a car accident in 1992.
Year composed: 1994
Duration: 00:17:30
Ensemble type: Orchestra:Standard Orchestra
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: triple wind orchestra with standard woodwind doublings