Solstice

The first movement of Three Winter Scenes, this is my latest reworking of this piece. It was originally called Winter Sunset, then Frozen Landscape, then finally incorporated into TWS as Solstice. Done in Sonar 8.5, with Garritan, EW Gold, Vienna sp ed 1, Cinematic Strings, Dimension Pro and TTS-1 synthesizers. The piece started as a musical representation of a poem I wrote in my twenties. Then I worked in some imagery portraying the solstice. So it's kind of an interweaving of two streams, one methodical (the first part, meant to portray time slowly ticking down to the moment of the solstice); the other more expressive (the imagery from the poem, which was about the cold beauty of a winter sunset, as well as feelings of loneliness and longing).
http://composers.boards.n...d/3/music-presentation
 

Thanks Wookie for your detailed comment (and listening twice - I took up nearly 20 minutes of your time - sorry about that, my pieces do tend to be long). I'll have to think about the bias issue you're noting, and try some narrowing.
 
As for it being rather plodding, you're right, and that is mostly intentional. The first part is literally intended to suggest a clock ticking down to the moment of the solstice. then there is a pause (the word solstice means pause - the sun pauses before reversing its apparent direction of movement day to day, as it heads toward the vernal equinox, and Spring). After the pause, it does become more expressive and emotional (hopefully).
 
I've considered putting a warning on this music: you may not want to drive or operate machinery for awhile after to listening to this piece. I sometimes fall asleep in my chair listening to it. Makes mixing a challenge...