When I was in my early teens, my father drove my sister and me sixty miles every Saturday to Youth Symphony.  He enjoyed listening to our progress and loved the music we played. VERDANT TWILIGHT is dedicated to him as a Father’s Day gift.  His love for his children, his wife, and music all come together in VERDANT TWILIGHT.  

Because my mother is a pianist, I wrote the work for piano and strings. 
The piano works not as soloist, but as a member of the orchestra, sometimes playing the primary line and sometimes accompanying the strings.  Lush string passages shape the course of the work and lead to a piano cadenza, then return to a quiet remembrance of the opening. The shifting between major and minor creates a shimmering, ethereal twilight.

Verdant Twilight

Philip Wharton