Arioso began as an interested in writing a long melody and eventually became the reaction to my first trip to Venice. Instead of following the herd of tourists going from monument to monument and museum to museum, I decided to find a quiet place near the gondolas with a friend and spent two hours there talking and enjoying the view of the water. The feeling of eternal calm and history in this spot was impressive, especially when compared to the raucous sounds coming from a band and hundreds of tourists in the Piazza di San Marco, may be two hundred yards away. Arioso reflects this feeling of eternal calm amid vibrant activity. The “fade-out” ending was inspired by childhood impressions of the eternal sound of fade-out endings in pop records. This becomes an appropriate temporal gesture to end a work influenced by the tranquility of one of the word’s most unique cities.