Fragments of a Dream

Description

Writing a work for the same instrumental ensemble as Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro was sparked by the unaccountable arrival in my mind of a short motif from a well-known 17thc. choral  piece. These seven uninvited notes, forming a not especially distinctive group in isolation from their original context, populate countless scores, and close relatives are used by Ravel, among many others, to build edifices of great beauty. The uninvited motif of seven notes, three of which occur twice, appears in this piece, with changed rhythm, at the beginning on the harp, while the strings enter successively to form a cluster of its constituent four notes, GFDA. This permeates the score, which becomes a collage with passing, interwoven and transmuted references to Ravel’s Septet and one or two other of his works featuring passages of a family likeness.