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Child's Garden of Dreams, A

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David Maslanka

David Maslanka


General Info

Year: 1981
Duration: 34:10
Difficulty: VII (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Carl Fischer
Cost: Score and Parts - Rental   |   Score (Purchase) - $95.00


Movements

1. There is a desert on the moon where the dreamer sinks so deeply into the ground that she reaches hell – 4:50
2. A drunken woman falls into the water and comes out renewed and sober – 4:05
3. A horde of small animals frightens the dreamer. The animals increase to a tremendous size, and one of them devours the little girl – 3:15
4. A drop of water is seen as it appears when looked at through a microscope. The girl sees that the drop is full of tree branches. This portrays the origin of the world – 11:20
5. An ascent into heaven where pagan dances are being celebrated; and a descent into hell where angels are doing good deeds – 9:20
Duration: 34:00


Instrumentation

Full Score
C Piccolo I-II
Flute I-II-III
Oboe I-II-III
English Horn
Bassoon I-II-III
Contrabassoon
E-flat Soprano Clarinet
B-flat Soprano Clarinet I-II-III
B-flat Bass Clarinet
B-flat Contrabass Clarinet
E-flat Alto Saxophone I-II
B-flat Tenor Saxophone
E-flat Baritone Saxophone
B-flat and C Trumpet I-II-III
Horn in F I-II-III-IV
Trombone I-II-III
Euphonium (optional)
Tuba
Piano
Harp
Electric Organ
Percussion I-II-III-IV-V-VI, including:

  • Antique Cymbals (C, C#, D)
  • Anvil
  • Bass Drum
  • Bongos (2 small, 2 medium, 1 large)
  • Crash Cymbals
  • Crystal Wine Glasses (2)
  • Cymbal (4 small suspended, 1 large suspended)
  • Glockenspiel
  • Gong (2 small)
  • Hi-Hat
  • Marimba
  • Ratchet
  • Sizzle Cymbal
  • Slide Whistle
  • Snare Drum
  • Tam Tam
  • Tambourine
  • Temple Blocks (2 small, 1 medium, 2 large)
  • Tenor Drum
  • Tom-Toms (2 small, 3 medium, 3 large)
  • Triangle (large)
  • Vibraphone
  • Wood Block (small)
  • Xylophone


Errata

In parts:

  • E-flat Baritone Saxophone, mvt. 5, m.61: New time signature should be 4/4.
  • Horn in F, mvt. 4, m.117: Written E-flat should be F-natural.


Program Notes

A Child's Garden of Dreams was commissioned by John and Marietta Paynter for the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble. It was composed in the summer of 1981 and premiered by Northwestern in 1982.

The following is from Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung: “A very important case came to me from a man who was himself a psychiatrist. One day he brought me a handwritten booklet he had received as a Christmas present from his 10-year-old daughter. It contained a whole series of dreams she had had when she was 8. They made up the weirdest series of dreams I have ever seen, and I could well understand why her father was more than just puzzled by them. Though childlike, they were uncanny, and they contained images whose origin was wholly incomprehensible to the father...In the unabridged German original, each dream begins with the words of the old fairy tale: ‘Once upon a time.’ By these words the little dreamer suggests that she feels as if each dream were a sort of fairy tale, which she wants to tell her father as a Christmas present.

The father tried to explain the dreams in terms of their context. But he could not do so because there appeared to be no personal associations to them...The little girl died of an infectious disease about a year after that Christmas... The dreams were a preparation for death, expressed through short stories, like the tales told at primitive initiations... The little girl was approaching puberty, and at the same time, the end of her life. Little or nothing in the symbolism of her dreams points to the beginning of a normal adult life. When I first read her dreams, I had the uncanny feeling that they suggested impending disaster.

These dreams open up a new and rather terrifying aspect of life and death. One would expect to find such images in an aging person who looks back on life, rather than to be given them by a child. Their atmosphere recalls the old Roman saying, 'Life is a short dream,' rather than the joy and exuberance of its springtime. Experience shows that the unknown approach of death casts an ‘adumbratio’ (an anticipatory shadow) over the life and dreams of the victim. Even the altar in Christian churches represents, on one hand, a tomb and, on the other, a place of resurrection –- the transformation of death into eternal life.”

I selected five of the twelve dreams as motifs for the movements of this composition:

I. There is a desert on the moon where the dreamer sinks so deeply into the ground that she reaches hell.

II. A Drunken woman falls into the water and comes out renewed and sober.

III. A horde of small animals frightens the dreamer. The animals increase to a tremendous size, and one of them devours the little girl.

IV. A drop of water is seen as it appears when looked at through a microscope. The girl sees that the drop is full of tree branches. This portrays the origin of the world.

V. An ascent into heaven, where pagan dances are being celebrated; and a descent into hell, where angels are doing good deeds.

- Program Note by composer


Media


State Ratings

  • North Carolina:
    • Grade VI: Must play at least Movements 1 & 5
    • Masterworks: Play all


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

  • Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Mallory Thompson, conductor) - 19 May 2023
  • West Texas A&M University (Canyon) Symphonic Band (Donald Lefevre, conductor) - 4 May 2023
  • Eastman School of Music (Rochester, N.Y.) Wind Ensemble (Mark Davis Scatterday, conductor)- 26 April 2023
  • The Naperville (Ill.) Winds (Sean Kelley, conductor) - 4 April 2023
  • Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Tx.) Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Sarah McKoin, conductor) - 23 March 2023
  • Oregon State University Wind Ensemble (Corvallis, Or.) (Erik Kar Jun Leung, conductor) - 28 February 2023
  • Charles River Wind Ensemble (Boston, Mass.) (Matthew M. Marsit, conductor) - 11 December 2022
  • The University of Texas at El Paso Wind Symphony (Andrew Hunter, conductor) - 15 November 2022 (Premiere of new visual accompaniment)
  • University of Cincinnati (Ohio) College-Conservatory of Music Wind Symphony (Kevin Michael Holzman, conductor) - 4 November 2022
  • University of British Columbia (Vancouver) Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Rob Taylor, conductor) - 19 November 2021
  • University of Kansas (Lawrence) Wind Ensemble (Jacquie Dawson, conductor) -16 April 2021
  • University of Oklahoma (Norman) Wind Symphony (Shanti Simon, conductor) – 21 February 2020 (CBDNA 2020 Southwestern Division Conference, Norman, Okla.)
  • Ohio State University (Columbus) Wind Symphony (Russel C. Mikkelson, conductor) – 11 February 2020
  • University of Toronto (Ont., Can.) Wind Ensemble and the Central Band of the Canadian Armed Forces (Gillian MacKay, conductor) - 6 February 2020
  • University of Oklahoma (Norman) Wind Symphony (Shanti Simon, conductor) – 24 November 2019
  • Arizona State University (Tempe) Wind Ensemble (Jason Caslor, conductor) – 4 November 2019
  • Belmont University (Nashville, Tenn.) Wind Ensemble (Barry Kraus, conductor) – 4 October 2019
  • University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Symphonic Wind Ensemble (Glenn Hayes, conductor) – 5 May 2019
  • Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) Wind Ensemble (John P. Paynter, conductor) - 26 February 1982 *Premiere Performance*


Works for Winds by This Composer


Resources

  • Booth, David Martin. An Analytical Study of David Maslanka’s 'A Child’s Garden of Dreams.' 1994. University of Oklahoma. D.M.A. dissertation.
  • David Maslanka website
  • Lourens, Alan. (2012). "A Child's Garden of Dreams." MBM Times Issue 6, p. 71.
  • Miles, Richard B. (2000). Teaching Music Through Performance in Band. Volume 3. Chicago: GIA Publications. pp. 592-611.
  • Perusal score
  • Poquette, J. (2016). "Maslanka’s 'A Child’s Garden of Dreams' Listening Guide: Inspired by Hannah Chan-Hartley from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra." University of Georgia Hodgson School of Music.
  • Rudgers, Gregory B. (2012). "A Child's Garden of Dreams." MBM Times Issue 6, p. 71.
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