Farewell (String Orchestra Gr. 3)

The composer presents in this piece a musical farewell to two late family members (his father and grandmother), both of whom died when he was a child. Farewell contains dynamic contrasts from pianissimo to fortissimo, ritard and molto ritard measures that are followed by a tempo, meno mosso, and piu mosso sections, and ends with the entire string orchestra fading to pianissimo while playing molto ritard al fine.

Genre: String Orchestra | # of Players: 8-8-5-5-5
Series: Emerald Orchestra Series
Level: 3 | Duration: 6:30

Instrumentation
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Contrabass

Program Notes
The composer presents in this piece a musical farewell to two late family members (his father and grandmother), both of whom died when he was a child. He was 10 years old when his 48-year-old father died. Two years later, his Italian grandmother (Nonna), who had lived with his family since he was three years old, also died. Losing these two family members as a boy was devastating for the composer, but memories of his father and grandmother inspired him to write this piece for string orchestra at the age of 73, six decades after their deaths. This piece is dedicated to the composer’s brothers Joe and Paul who shared these losses when they were children. Farewell contains dynamic contrasts from pianissimo to fortissimo, ritard and molto ritard measures that are followed by a tempo, meno mosso, and piu mosso sections, and ends with the entire string orchestra fading to pianissimo while playing molto ritard al fine.