Winter Train from Wanderlust by Eastern Standard

From the composer, Octavio Vazquez:

Oftentimes, when working on a project, an image or a meaning that I did not know about will come forward and reveal itself essential to the nature of the piece. It may be a historical event, a painting, a symbol, even a person. In this case, from the opening chords I seemed to be looking out of a window in a train moving steadily through a snow-covered landscape. As the music unravels, so does the image, speaking of turns in the railroad and of snow flurries, all of them symbolic of a deeper experience. It is my custom to include at the beginning of the score a number of literary quotes that may seem at first almost random or contradictory, but that are for me the best way to point to the meaning behind a piece, and that I reproduce below. I have also noticed an unintended musical reference to the opening measures of Schubert’s Winterreise (“Winter Journey”), in the steady D minor chords and the prominence of the ninth as the first non-chord tone.

“To what can this human life be likened?
Perhaps to a wild swan treading on the snow;
it leaves a few tracks and flies on blithely into the unknown”
Tracks in the Snow, Su Tung-p’o

“Der Zug kriecht / durch unberührte Landschaft / wie ein Eindringling.”
( “The train crawls / Through untouched landscape / Like an intruder.…” )
Winterzug, Inge Hornisch

“I can taste the tin of the sky – the real tin thing.
Winter dawn is the color of metal”
Waking in Winter, Sylvia Plath

“Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter.
It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.”
Rumi

“I like trains. I like their rhythm,
and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties
of purpose taken care of; for this moment I know where I am going.”
Anna Funder

“Don’t insist on going where you think you want to go.
Ask the way to the spring. Your living pieces will form a harmony.”
Leave your Self, Rumi

“It’s my experience that most folk who ride trains could care less
where they’re going. For them it’s the journey itself
and the people they meet along the way.”
The Christmas Train, David Baldacci

“Of course, in our train of thought,
we would all like to think we’re on the right track, or at least
the same railroad company as the right track.”
Killosophy, Criss Jami

Winter Train was completed in December of 2016 and premiered by Eastern Standard at the Southwest Horn Conference in Phoenix, AZ, on January 27, 2017.

Tracklist

3.	Winter Train	6:26

Credits

from Wanderlust, released February 22, 2019

License