Dream Scenes (2023)
For Piano Trio (Violin, Cello, Piano)
Co-Commissioned by Tonhalle Düsseldorf and The Black Diamond Copenhagen
Dedicated to Saleem Abboud Ashkar, with admiration and gratitude
Duration: 13 minutes
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Performed live by Boris Brovtsyn (violin), Claudio Bohórquez (cello), Saleem Ashkar (piano) at Tonhalle Düsseldorf’s Schumannfest.
Program Note
Dream Scenes is written in homage to composer Robert Schumann. Schumann’s music has long been important to me. I grew up playing his Kinderszenen (Scenes of Childhood) on the piano return to it often. Schumann’s music speaks intensely to me about the experience of life, often through a focus on some of life’s most fleeting moments – a sudden turn of emotion, an impromptu daydream, or a treasured memory.
As I began composing this piece, I thought of Schumann’s practice of juxtaposing, and transitioning between, music of dramatic contrasts. We find this in the striking changes of character in his music, moving between the fiery, mischievous music that he often ascribed to his alter-ego, Florestan, and the dreamy, introspective music that he credited to another of his musical personalities, Eusebius. Even within a single phrase, we find ourselves shuttled between distantly related harmonies, connected by threads of counterpoint.
After the premiere concert at Schumannfest Düsseldorf (Uwe Sommer-Sorgente, Boris Brovtsyn, Saleem Ashkar, Christina Bock, Claudio Bohórquez) (Photo credit: Schumannfest Düsseldorf)
My trio takes inspiration from Kinderszenen, a collection of short character pieces, but instead of evoking commonplace scenes of childhood, it imagines the fantastical realms of dreams, where things may not always make logical sense, but are nevertheless wondrous, deeply felt experiences. Throughout the work, I quote and reimagine a few favorite fleeting moments from Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 2, using them as building blocks for my own music.
Dream Scenes is structured in four movements of contrasting character: I. Dreaming, yearning; II. Playful, dancing; III. Floating, spacious; IV. Freely, rustic. The third movement returns to the same scene as the first, yet we find key elements have fundamentally changed. The second movement tosses around a quote from Schumann’s trio in a series of adventures and the fourth reworks one of Schumann’s phrases in the guise of a folk song, as if coming from some distant, imagined realm.
Dream Scenes was co-commissioned by Tonhalle Düsseldorf and The Black Diamond Copenhagen. It is dedicated to Saleem Abboud Ashkar.
- Eric Nathan