Faye-Ellen Silverman

The Story of the Trees

Year: 2021

Duration (in minutes): 8'

Difficulty: Medium (college/community)

Category: woodwind quintet

Instruments: flute, horn, oboe

Publisher: Subito Music Corp.

Publisher website: https://www.subitomusic.com/

Purchase score URL: https://www.subitomusic.com/

Description: During the pandemic, I have gone for many walks, noticing my surroundings in new ways. One aspect of nature that has dazzled me over and over is the shape of tree branches – so graceful and beautiful in their patterning. Each pattern is unique, even for the same species of trees. I still can’t stop looking at them and photographing them. I then read a book given to me by a good friend – Richard Powers The Overstory. This same friend introduced me to Suzanne Simard’s book, Finding the Mother Tree. She states that “trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complex, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.” This woodwind quintet from 2021 (The Story of the Trees) is in three short movements. In the first movement, “The Majesty of the Branching Trees”, instrumental parts cross and wind around each other, just as tree branches do. The second movement, Low-lying Limbs, uses the lower ranges of the five instruments, including the piccolo’s unique sound in its low range. The last movement, Dancing Beneath the Boughs, is based on some of the outdoor dances performed singly and in groups as people gathered outside to be social yet safe from the pandemic.