And Then – Hope!
This final piece is presented as a score visualization — the music unfolding exactly as written, quietly becoming sound. Sometimes hope needs no images.
Hope!
Hope!
After the shadows of The Volgarian’s Garden, the concert cannot end in dread. The ancient story of Pandora reminds us that after every sorrow has escaped into the world, one thing remains at the bottom of the jar: Hope — not as denial, but as endurance. If Fear and Desire are the two guardians that bar the way back to Eden, hope is the narrow passage between them, the quiet courage to keep walking even while they shout from both sides.
Growing up makes that passage necessary. Innocence gives way to control, control to consequence, and consequence to the sober knowledge that life includes suffering. Every honest person eventually asks why a loving God would permit such a world. The answer, if it comes at all, is less an explanation than a reassurance: you do not have to earn divine love. You cannot. Love precedes you, accompanies you, and outlasts every failure. Suffering is not proof of abandonment; it is evidence of being alive in a real, finite world where joy is also possible.
Hope, then, is not the belief that nothing will hurt. It is the conviction that hurting is not the final word. Our single task is simple, though not easy: tend to suffering — our own and that of others. In doing so, we become what we were meant to be: finite creatures through whom infinite compassion can act. History itself, for all its regressions and cruelties, shows a slow, uneven movement toward less violence, more care, broader circles of concern. That long arc is fragile, but it is real. And that is hopeful.
The music mirrors this movement. A barely audible beginning — harp alone — gathers strength as strings, winds, and brass join in. The harmony rises step by step, as if climbing out of a valley, before settling into a gentle, luminous calm. It does not shout victory; it breathes assurance.
And at the end comes a plagal cadence — the old church “Amen.” Not triumphant, not final in a dramatic sense, but deeply settled. The kind of ending that says: the story continues, but you are safe enough to rest.
