Alexandra Zerner | Fade, Pt 2 - Afternoon in September (Playthrough)

Today, it is time for another playthrough video and this time, it's a track from my last album Silhouette which I released last year. The composition is called Afternoon in September and it's the second part of the scene Fade. If you're familiar with the album, you know it's divided into three scenes - Colours, Fade and To Black - so here we're exploring the middle of the album. 

This piece is one of the most multi-instrumental ones even though it might not seem so at first. The reason is that I used several instruments just to create a particular texture that I needed. I've always been inspired by Western and North European folk music, as Celtic music accounts for a big share of this pie so that's why I like to use mandolin and octave mandolin so much. There is something fairytale-ish about their sound and I find it both soothing and dramatic which is very appropriate for this composition.

Despite the relatively optimistic sound of the track, it actually has a relatively grim background which is connected to an intrusive vision that I had many years ago. It is quite disturbing so if you're too sensitive, you can skip the paragraph below.

I was lying in a hospital bed in a milky-green painted room, being there after a heart attack. I felt very weak and dizzy and it was an afternoon in September and the setting sun was shining through the window. I was feeling so tired of everything and I felt that these are my last moments so I just let myself rest and experience relief that the pain is over and I am leaving this world.

There is a hidden reprise in this track - the theme at the end is actually a simplified version of the main theme of Pilzhaus. The reason I put it there is to be like a reminiscence of the happy memory that one holds to keep them warm inside when everything around is cold and hostile.

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