The Journey Home-Martin Mikles.

The Journey Home-Martin Mikles.

The Composer-

Marty Mikles (b.1979) earned his BM from Georgia State University, where he studied Trombone with Dr. Thomas Gibson.  He is a composer and arranger but also does performances on trombone and euphonium.  He is somewhat of a brass band enthusiast and participates regularly in brass bands of The Salvation Army.  He is a very spiritual man and has a lot of experience leading worship around the U.S.  He is currently involved in a Christian Rock group under the record label of the Salvation Army.  Here you can view his facebook page to see what they are all about.
http://www.facebook.com/martymiklesmusic

The Piece-

The Journey Home is based off of the story of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15: 11-32.  Here is a basic summary of that story.

Jesus tells the story of a man who has two sons.  The younger son demands his share of his inheritance while his father is still living, and goes off to a far away country where he "wastes his substance with riotous living."  He eventually has to take work as a swine herder, which is a very form of employment as swine are not kosher in Judaism.  While enduring this work, he becomes aware of his wasted time and decides to return home.  There, he throws himself on his father's mercy.  But when he arrives, his father greets him warmly and barely allows him to tell his tales of troubled times and express his repentance; the father even kills a "fatted calf" to celebrate his return (this was a sign of great celebration).  The story continues with the older brother becoming jealous at the favored treatment of his faithless brother and upset at the lack of reward for his own faithfulness.

Marty Mikles composed this piece in fulfillment of a final project while at Georgia State.  The piece, as Mikles describes it, is "a musical depiction of the parable of the Prodigal Son."  The piece has a very longing nostalgic character in the beginning which is outlined by the piano harmonies under the melody of the euphonium.  Then the character changes to a more jubilant character with a key change at B which then leads into one of the main climax's of the piece.  The character then turns back to a more nostalgic character but its more of a relaxed and happier nostalgia than the previous.  The main theme then returns after yet another climax in the piece and quickly changes to a majestic character to lead to the main climax of the piece to quickly relax into a final D major chord, which ends the piece.

This little analysis will make more sense with a recording.  Unfortunately there are no recordings on YouTube for me to use, so I will be adding this piece to my list of pieces to put on YouTube.