Скачать или смотреть Benjamin Sabey -- Dream Suite performed by Earplay Ensemble

Dream Suite performed by Earplay Ensemble May 19, 2025 at Noe Valley Ministry.
I Prelude
II Lied
III Toccata capricciosa
IV Sarabande
V Episode
VI Confession

Commissioned by the Barlow Endowment at Brigham Young University and with support from the Maison Dora Maar Residency

Mary Chun, conductor
Tod Brody, flutes
Peter Josheff, clarinets
Margaret Halbig, piano
Terrie Baune, violin
Ellen Ruth Rose, viola
Leighton Fong, cello

Video and audio recorded by Zach Miley

Posted here under this create commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

I normally take composition seriously as a spiritual discipline
striving for a kind of truth whose meaning is no less real and
sustaining for its inherent ambiguity. In Dream Suite, however, I give
myself permission to just have fun and to do all sorts of things that I
might otherwise feel were inappropriate. These include a persistent
use of musical quotations from a range of genres, styles, and periods;
mashing up, for example, a sacred Bach cantata with the theme from
the ‘80s TV show Knight Rider, or David Bowie’s Kooks with Alban
Berg’s Lyric Suite. Playful non sequiturs and incongruities are simply
justified by the title since all kinds of weird things can happen in
dreams. And yet...

As the piece neared its completion, I realized that I had fallen victim
to the common psychological phenomenon Victor Frankl calls
“paradoxical intention.” Because I was paying so much attention to
not being serious, I ended up being more serious than I have ever
been in anything I have written before. What was supposed to be a
piece about sweet dreams ended up being more about the broken
variety and in the grand romantic tradition became a Berlioz-like
airing of grievances. Oops. I almost felt guilty for allowing this to
happen. Thus in the final movement I try to repent of my self-
absorption and confess my faith that this life is a brief dream and
that the day will soon come when we will see that "all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well" – Julian of Norwich.

Continue reading here: benjaminsabey.com/dream-suite-program-notes