Nicole Piunno

Sunflower Studies, a symphony in five movements for wind ensemble, explores Vincent Van Gogh’s love for sunflowers combined with my own love of the sunflower. The titles for movement one and movement four come from the beautiful nature of the sunflower itself, while the titles for movement two and movement five come from Van Gogh’s painting style. These movements are connected in the middle by a short interlude.

Many movements incorporate the hymn tune Tell Me the Old, Old Story. This was one of Van Gogh’s favorite hymns, and the melody and lyrics have grown on me as I have gotten to know it. The hymn has a child-like quality to it which to me represents a sincere faith. Van Gogh said he wanted his paintings “to say something comforting as music is comforting ... something of the eternal.” This melody also represents that source of comfort which the sunflower can bring to a person.

I learned a lot about Van Gogh and his work from reading the letters Vincent wrote to his brother. Vincent told his brother he wanted to make a series of paintings of sunflowers that would contain broken yellows against blue backgrounds. He described this series of paintings to his brother, “The whole thing will therefore be a symphony in blue and yellow.” His style of combining dark and light elements together on a canvas is similar to my style as a composer and this makes me feel as though I found a kindred spirit in Vincent.

Sunflowers are vibrant, beautiful and sturdy flowers. Sunflowers had great significance for Van Gogh: they represented gratitude. In a similar fashion, for me sunflowers exemplify faith.

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