scored for piano

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duration 11 minutes 

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In a Dream unfolds as an impressionistic diptych — music that hovers somewhere between perception and memory.

 

In …gloom blossoms…, the dream takes on an almost symbolist character. Sounds seem to rise out of the mist: fragile, veiled, and inward-turned. There is a constant murmuring, sound as light, with colors continually passing and dissolving, as if we were suspended in a state of half-consciousness.

 

The Island of Charm, Delicacy and Destruction shifts the perspective. This movement is explicitly intertextual, referring to Debussy’s L’Isle joyeuse, itself inspired by Antoine Watteau’s L’Embarquement pour Cythère. What initially presents itself as seduction — shimmering colors, rococo ornament, sensual lightness — gradually tilts. Beneath the elegance lies excess; beneath paradise, rawness. The island becomes an ambiguous Eden: not merely a glorified exoticism, but a place where beauty and destruction converge.

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…gloom blossoms…

The Island of Charm, Delicacy and Destruction

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In a Dream is dedicated to Steven Vanhauwaert and was recorded at the University of Utah’s School of Music in September 2024.