This album is a journey. It is a voyage sailed upon sounds carried by the air that surrounds you. These recordings are explorations into the inner places and vulnerabilities of the soul. Composer Gustav Hoyer is your guide, with help by the artistry of violinist Lindsay Deutsch, soprano Lori Ann Fuller, and the wonderful musicians of the Orchestra Unleashed. Your ears and your mind are the vessel upon which you join the trip. From the opening notes of 'The Comedian's Waltz' you hear a wordless storyteller in a voice of wood and string. The story begins in the inner quiet of the Comedian, the one who has learned to feed upon the laughter of others as nourishment for a dark and disaffected heart. Alone, and full of craving for connection, the Comedian rises from the void inside to beguile and charm the audience. The voice of the violin begins the comedy as the audience of the orchestra assembles and begins to follow in laughter. Some jokes are frivolous, some crass, and some fail leaving the audience squirming in their seats filled with discomfort and anticipation. The voice of the performer rises and toys with the audience playing them as if they are his instrument, in one moment laughing, and the next touched with bittersweet sentiment. As the Comedian plays his jests, the inner parts of the soul reflect back the darkness and the bottomless appetite to be loved through applause. Coming from the well, a final reprise brings the house down in thunderous adulation. After the show, a tender moment: 'Notturno' is a musical love letter to the storms of love. A piece for the evening, the opening love song is plaintive and warm in the sultry night. Rising from the bosom, it is a simple song that hearkens to the beloved. But, the truest love is not a placid, glassy lake without a ripple, but is the more beautiful as the perturbations of the waves cast the reflections of sky into inky uncertainty. It is a love that weathers and endures, strengthened to tenderness and intimacy. As the night deepens, the soul begins to face the profound darkness of the end of consciousness. In the dark and quiet hours of the deepest sleep, when everyone in the house is asleep, a person may face the cold sweats of mortality. Death could be a failed heartbeat away, and no man can stay the hour that is their last. That hour creeps steadily, with each relentless tick of the second hand. The ultimately humility of every soul: that each of us will yield our souls into an unsearchable chasm. It is in this profound moment of vulnerability that the soul cries to God: 'Abide With Me'. The words of the dying Scot, Henry Lyte, voice the cry of the naked soul. As he lay dying, Lyte meditated on the reality that of all the moments and triumphs of life upon which God's companionship may have shone, it is the moment that he would stand, stripped of excuse, before the transcendent judge. It is at that moment that Lyte cries out his request: Abide With Me. Through Christ, that intercession is met, and the glorious vistas of tearless eternity open before him as this weakening heartbeat whispers out it last utterances in this life. From the fear and intimacy of Death, to the meditation on the loss of the beloved, 'Tears' is a musical weeping. Not an uncontrollable wailing. It is the quiet, resigned, weeping that comes in the face of inexorable loss. The beloved will be gone, never to be heard with human ears. Youth flees leaving a ever increasing enfeeblement in the wake of each passing hour. Change, loss...Tears. The quiet weeping and impotence of grief culminates in the long anticipated loss. A father is dead. Dedicated to the composer's father L.R. Hoyer upon his passing, 'Over the Next Ridge' is the last ride of a cowboy. Opening with the vigor and power of the old west, the rider commands the prairies from the back of his horse. Youthful and rugged, the opening music suddenly gives way as he begins to ride alone into the high pine forests toward the top of the ridge. It is impossible to see the other side as the cool breeze wafts through the pines. The journey and passage of death is always alone. The cowboy comes to the top of the ridge as the life leaves his body...where he behold the glorious vistas beyond. He has passed from the sight of this world, and is on to new, unimaginable adventures over the next ridge. From here, we leave the complicated textures of the orchestral palette and move the orchestra of the fingers: the piano. This suite of works follows the great masterwork of allegory: the Pilgrim's Progress. Written to accompany a special mobile application from Studio IGO, the sixteen short vignettes begin the journey of the Pilgrim with a prologue punctuated by the waiting and the ticking of the clock on the wall. His world is rocked when he learns of a coming devastation upon his home in City of Destruction. He resolves to flee, but does so alone as his family refuses to heed his warnings. He escapes, but is soon caught by sorrow for his state in the Slough of Despond. Freed from this swamp, he is tempted to climb the insurmountable heights to Mr. Legailty's House, but he cannot scale them. But, that is not the true way of escape. He comes to the narrow Wicket Gate through which only one may pass at a time. Impeded by the flying of flaming arrows, the Pilgrim narrowly escapes through to the other side, and his journey truly begins. He receives knowledge and comfort at the Interpreter's House, and his burden of sin is shed At the Cross. He is then further comforted in Palace Beautiful. Leaving the safety of the palace, he fights the fearsome Appolyon who is challenged with the sword of the Spirit. Fleeing the scene, the Pilgrim finds himself alone on the Narrow Road which is fraught with deadly hazards on both sides. He must stay the high, narrow path while terrors churn in the valley's beneath him. Having stayed the path, he enters into the city of Vanity Fair. Here he is confronted, and his companion, Faithful, is dragged to the gibbet to be hung as Pilgrim gives a solemn farewell. Escaping, the Pilgrim is imprisoned in the dark dungeons of the Giant Despair where he languishes for an extended time. He is released and flees the Giant's custody to resume his travel. He again finds comfort for the journey reminiscent of the Interpreter's House. From the vales of the Delectable Mountain, the pilgrim sees the promises of the shimmering Celestial City. As he draws close, he is ensnared by devilish imps and can only be saved by the appearance of The Shining One whose radiance fills the dark forest and breaks his bonds. Coming nigh to the long-sought city, the pilgrim must face the last terror: the River of Death. The churning waters swirl and overwhelm the traveler. He sinks below the raging waters, but is delivered to the far shore where he stands before the trophy of his travels, the Celestial City. A place of joy and light, Christian is finally at home.