Review Summary: Poetic, warm and lyrical. This symphonic piece is one to be remembered.
Andrew Boysen Jr is a modern day neo-classical (or symphonic) composer, and with the likes of great composers in Frank Ticheli, Philip Sparke and Jack Stamp watching over his every move Boysen was asked to write a deep, lyrical ballad for an upcoming music festival. Boysen responded with a piece entitled
A Song For Lyndsay, which is a mystical journey of ecstasy, love, joy and emotion.
A Song For Lyndsay is very close to Boysens heart as it is based around a piano piece that he had written for his wife, Lyndsay (hence, the title) a few years back. Boysen wanted to incorporate the rudimentary elements of this piano backing and add the fundamental, yet complex sounds of a wind band placed within in the work that he was writing for the festival. With the added extra of the wind band, Boysen was able to create extra meaning to the song giving representation of him and his wife as separate instruments in the piece. Boysen wrote himself in as the French Horn, while Lyndsay was to be the flute. As the piece goes from start to finish you gather different interactions between the two instruments as they begin disbanded, flirt around with each other through the middle and come together at the end for a wonderful duet and climax.
The work starts out with the ominous sound of a gentle piano chords linking into a simple melody, as a mesmerizing French Horn solo that will sweep you of your feet emerges over the top. The woodwinds then follow the melody that the Horn planted, yet play with a more tender grasp. The woodwinds eventually build to a very climatic and rich sounding crescendo in the middle of the piece which is followed by a call and response by the upper woodwinds, before the French Horn joins in for one final climax, which is the most stunning sound of timbre and texture between the horns and flutes creating one of the most warming sounds that will be heard in modern wind band music. The piece is then closed by the small and simplistic piano line that began the whole journey.
Boysen states that, “
A Song for Lyndsay is still more than anything else a simple love song dedicated to Lyndsay and what she has meant in my life.” Yet many people have listened and found their own interpretation of the piece since depending on the context that
A Song For Lyndsay is listened to, many different emotions can be filled or found.
A Song For Lyndsay really stands up to the expectations that other composers wanted to hear from Andrew Boysen Jr, as
A Song For Lyndsay is a beautiful and joyful journey that no-one cant love.
