Symphony #1: 3rd Movement

Corte Swearingen has been composing and arranging classical music for over 35 years. He was was trained at the St. Louis Conservatory of Music and currently resides in the Chicago suburbs. If you enjoy this album, please visit the composer's website at www.corteswearingen.com.

Notes from the composer:

Appassionata: The challenge I wanted to give myself with "Appassionata" was to take a very simple set of four chords and see if I could write an entire piece around them. The piece starts out quietly with a solo piano introduction. After a bit, the cello comes in to state the melody while the piano accompanies in the background. After the cello and piano dance a bit, a full string orchestra comes in to once again restate this very simple melody. Towards the end, the piece goes back to just cello and piano, and then finally ends just as it began, with just piano restating the melody for a final time before the final chords slowly echo away.

The Angels' Prayer: A soaring melodic composition written for unaccompanied soprano choir.

Coming Home: This piece showcases the oboe and also features the clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, and full string orchestra. It was written on two levels. In the reuniting of a loved one, but also as a metaphor for coming back to our spiritual center.

Music to Accompany a Nightmare: I wrote this piece while remembering some of my strange childhood dreams. The piece itself is without any sort of structure (much like our dreams) and includes various percussion instruments, piano, harp, jazz bass, trombone, bass trombone, tuba and strings. As a musical metaphor as to how our dreams can incorporate the familiar and yet distort it, the piano part paraphrases the themes of three classic TV shows; The Brady Bunch, The Flinstones, and I Love Lucy. Can you hear them around the middle of the piece?

I Want to Hold Your Hand: Back in Bach's day, he would take popular tunes of the day and improvise on them at the keyboard. Had the Beatles lived back in Bach's time, he would have played and improvised around them at his public concerts. This solo piano arrangement is how Bach might have played this piece.

In My Homeland: From 1867 to 1901, Edvard Grieg wrote a collection of 66 short piano works titled "Lyrical Pieces." I arranged one of these solo piano pieces "In My Homeland," for four trombones. While the piece is slow and lyrical, it requires four very virtuosic trombonists to perform well. This is because it uses some of the very highest ranges of the trombone.

Moon Over the Ruined Castle: Based on a melody from the Japanese composer Rentaro Taki, This piece starts out with solo piano - a very quiet single-note introduction. Once the theme is stated, the cello counters with its own solo, restating and complementing the theme. After a short interplay between the two instruments, a fugue begins which allows the two instruments to fully weave in and out of the main themes.

Remembrance: This piece was written for the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Russian Winter: Using two contrasting instruments, this piece invokes imagery similar to a Russian folk song. The clarinet invokes a sense of hope and yearning, while the bassoon counters in a complementary way.

Sakura: An arrangement of an old traditional Japanese folk song. The song depicts Spring - the season of the cherry blossom. The tune is also known as "The Cherry Blossom Song."

Symphony #1: This is the 3rd movement from my first symphony. One of the themes I use is a recomposition of the tune "Maraba Blue" by the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim.

The Violin: I've always loved the violin. It is perhaps the most versatile instrument in the orchestra, and writing for it is both satisfying and challenging. This piece is dedicated to my violinist wife Susan.

Variations on "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star": A set of solo virtuoso violin variations based on the popular children's song.

The Undecided Trumpeter: The piece gets its name because the trumpet part keeps changing - from fast to slow tempos, from major to minor keys, and from one playing style to another - almost as if the player is undecided as to just what they want to play. You'll even hear a passionate tango inserted right in the middle.

Special Note: Orchestral samples included in this recording from the Vienna Symphonic Library