I came across this piece many years ago, and time hasn’t diminished my love for it.
When By Night by Australian composer and pianist Sophie Hutchings plays on my liked songs list, I stop whatever I’m doing. I close my eyes and let the music take over.
It’s just so haunting, yet optimistic. Commanding, yet free and fluttery. Serious, yet ethereal.
If I had to choose one song that reflects me, this would be it. Or at least, it reflects how I move through the world.
The piece creates a mood that feels emotional without sentimentality. It carries an ethereal quality, but it also holds a subtle darkness—something grounding and real. All the things that appeal to me.
I find it, or imagine it, perfect for so many occasions:
❦ Cruising the Bohemian Highway along the northern California coast with the moon roof open
❦ As a soundtrack for a movie, perhaps at the end of a story where the protagonist survived, will, indeed, thrive, and is at peace
❦ At a memorial, honoring a life fully lived
❦ Walking in a dense redwood forest with headphones on
❦ Making collage art in my studio
❦ Reading at sunset, nestled in the nook of my couch covered in a fuzzy blanket with fuzzy socks to match
❦ On a winter evening, candles flickering, just finishing the dishes and turning off the light after a perfect day
Music resists explanation. It bypasses language and goes somewhere words can’t follow.
How can a song be so many things at once—haunting and hopeful, shadowed and restorative?
❦
Music: By Night by Sophie Hutchings
Video: embedded via YouTube
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