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Classical composers have approached music from a wide variety of perspectives.  Operas, for example, are narrative in structure and are a form of musical theater. There is drama and spectacle set to music. The story often is one of human emotion, and characters live and love in particular settings just as in plays except most of the dialog is sung. The music expresses the emotional range of the narrative content and is also designed to show the power and expressiveness of the human voice. Symphonies may also have a semi-narrative structure or they may musically represent something worldly like the seasons of the year. Other symphonic works may represent ideas or responses to life like Dvorak’s Symphony Number 9 (New World Symphony) or Holst’s The Planets. Whatever literary or narrative ideas a composer may use as the basis of a composition, the music is central and involves complex structural musical language to make it work. As listeners, we may key in to the subtext, but it is always the music that has the most powerful impact, for that first and foremost is what the experience of listening is about.

            Painting as visual imagery is sometimes compared to music, especially abstract painting since color and shape are visually comparable to musical sound and rhythm: both are essentially abstract. They are experienced for what they are, first and foremost, not for what they may represent. Painting and music are given form and structure by the composing artist, and it is within that structure that the work is experienced and appreciated. Such is the case with my newest addition to the Windows and Doors series of compositions, Sky Window. My wife suggested the title based on her experience, and I decided to keep the name not necessarily because it in any way reminds me of sky seen through a window. As with others in this series, the reference to either window or door is the trope around which the series is built. The painting may be thought of as a window or door into a given space. How that is perceived is up to the viewer.