Timothy Raymond’s Album Leaves and Blossoms was commissioned by the Canadian pianist Margaret Bruce. A familiar verse of W. B. Yeats — ‘O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, / Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? / O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, / How can we know the dancer from the dance?’ (‘Among School Children’, 1928) — evokes something of the character of this cycle of seven interconnected pieces. There are certainly dance-like moments, but also elements that, for the composer, recall Piet Mondrian' s tree paintings and sketches made during the last years of the 19th century up to 1913. Visually, these trace a circuitous journey from figurative art towards a sort of ideal form — an essence of the thing observed.

 Music example (pdf)