I Am Made of Memories: VII - He is Half of my Soul, as the Poets Say.

The seventh movement in my Song of Achilles symphonic poem. This line has always meant so much to met and really gets to me every time I re-read that passage. I always get bursts of inspiration late at night and jumped out of bed to write this down so I can develop it tomorrow.

Achilles and Patroclus’ story is so tragic yet beautiful. I want this movement to really highlight the feeling of two soulmates in the wrong place at the wrong time. That question of what if things had just been a little different, had they been able to stay on Mount Pelion.

This is a lot lighter in its instrumentation, I’ll be restraining myself in regarding the strings, I want it to be intimate, as if Achilles and Patroclus could hide away in their own sanctuary, free from Troy. Just the two of them. The oboe in this is my dancer, holding steady over the bar and driving that sense of lost time, of a boy killed too soon, of yearning to be together again.

I feel this piece really reflects how I viewed Patroclus in my mind. There’s a real gentleness to him and I hoped to portray that here. Amongst the crashing waves of strings and brass, out of the eye of the storm that is the Trojan war comes this humble piano ostinato, slowly building. Patroclus saw the best in people, and brought people together, healed people.
As such, the piano serves as a gravitational core for this work, and each instrument coming in to play slowly weaves around it.

Can I also just express my gratitude at all my fellow book lovers for sharing my music lately? It means so much to me. This book has marked itself on my heart and I can’t wait to share this full work with you as I slowly chip away it it.