Joseph Schwantner

Daydreams... Reverie

When I was young, I had the propensity to Daydream- not a particularly unusual circumstance, I suppose, for a boy with a clear temperament fiercely drawn to art, poetry and most especially to music. For as long as I can remember, music’s many mysteries has engaged my ear, mind and spirit. The love and support of my Grandmother and Mother helped encourage my musical interests that remain at the forefront of my creative endeavors. When Yevgeny performed my work,“The Poet’s Hour” for Violin and Strings with Music Director, Gerard Schwarz and his All-Star Orchestra, I was dazzled by the brilliance of his playing. After his invitation to contribute a short work for his “Meditation of Family” project, I found old photograph (1924) of my maternal grandparents and mother as a baby that fired my musical imagination with fond memories of early family life. These brief original lines were also a source of inspiration. Daydreams... drifting free from a time before, embrace this interior world. “Daydreams…” opens with a series of rising sustained violin double stops that define the work’s overall harmonic spectrum and gives rise to a backdrop of vocal and crystal goblet sonorities that spring from the violin’s increasingly forceful gestures. The violin becomes increasingly animated and vigorous with music that soars above the seemingly disparate world of sustained voices, as though on a journey looking back on fading memories. – Joseph Schwantner