Each piece of music I write comes from the depth of my heart, from the inner ocean of emotions and possibilities carried by the waves of memories. Just as a sculptor who frees the elusive figures from the block of marble by cutting away all that is unnecessary, I find myself carving out the musical notes from the inspiration that visits me and calls me to compose, guiding the process of creation. Perhaps for the composer, the writing of music is a divine act, as much a meditative experience that opens the gates to the paradise lost and brings out the nostalgia for the infinite. This is what I felt when I was writing the symphonic poem “Winter Bells.”
After finishing my first year at Yale, I was looking for inspiration. I was preparing to write my first symphonic work, but I did not have a material or idea with which I could work. In search of it, I went back to Russia and visited an old Russian village. There, I was able to connect my roots and rekindle my imagination by visiting a series of sacred places in the wilderness: three mountain peaks that, when seen from an aerial perspective, appeared to be forming a giant goblet. I was all alone, with the vastness of space and rocks stretching in all directions. And then it came to me. It was a choral, religious motif that I could faintly discern. I sat down on a fallen tree and wrote it into my scratch book.
Once I returned and started working on my piece, I felt that I was still missing the key idea. Unable to decide whether to have a tour de force opening or to save it for the culmination toward the end, I was caught in a dilemma. After multiple starts, I finally found the right key, and it felt like the symphonic poem was writing itself. I just barely had time to move my hand, scribbling it all down. Inspiration was unleashed as I feverishly worked non-stop for several days until I laid my pen down to rest.
When I started composing the piece,I found myself reaching for that special place within, where everything surrenders to the whispers of nature and divine harmony. “Winter Bells” is probably one of my most cherished compositions that has a personal significance to me. Creating it has been both a challenge as well as an enchanting delight.
The symphony begins with a fleeting image. A Russian winter filled with void, bleakness, and an eerie feeling. A traveler on a long journey on the brink of madness and desperation, fighting his way through the deadly blizzard. A vision from the past, joyous and wondrous, materializes and disappears as a mirage in the middle of a snowy desert. Will the traveler survive? For whom shall the bells toll when their ringing resonates at a distance? Will he be spared, or will he perish before completing his journey?