John Doan: Music

This music is influenced by Johannes Brahms. One theme is loosely borrowed from the third movement of his third symphony written in 1883. My inspiration came as I sat beneath the willow tree by my house. Within the shelter of its limbs, I felt as though I were sitting inside a huge cathedral. For a moment, the tens of thousands of leaves became many panes of stained glass, and my ordinary world of things, people, and events seemed peripheral. Instead, at the center was a sense of eternity that I could not look into full strength. At that moment a warm wind breathed into me a consolation of love so great I could not comprehend it.