A Child's Garden of Dreams

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Piccolo 1, Piccolo 2, Flute 1, Flute 2, Flute 3, Oboe 1, Oboe 2, Oboe 3, Clarinet in Eb, Clarinet in Bb 1, Clarinet in Bb 2, Clarinet in Bb 3, Bass Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet, Bassoon 1, Bassoon 2, Bassoon 3, Alto Saxophone 1, Alto Saxophone 2, Tenor Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone, Horn in F 1, Horn in F 2, Horn in F 3, Horn in F 4, Trumpet in Bb 1, Trumpet in Bb 2, Trumpet in Bb 3, Trombone 1, Trombone 2, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Percussion, Harp, Piano, Electric Organ — 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 eight. 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 ceremonial 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 upon 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 have selected five of the twelve dreams as motifs for the movements of this composition: 1. There is a desert on the moon where the dreamer sinks so deeply in to the ground that she reaches hell. 2. A drunken woman falls into the water and comes out renewed and sober. 3. A horde of small animals frightens the dreamer. The animals increase to a tremendous size, and one of them devours the little girl. 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. 5. An ascent into heaven where pagan dances are being celebrated; and a descent into hell, where angels are doing good deeds. David Maslanka's A Child's Garden of Dreams for Wind Ensemble, written in 1981, takes inspiration from the writings of Carl Jung, specifically the dreams recounted in Man And His Symbols. Five of the twelve dreams recounted by Jung serve as motifs and titles for the five movements of this composition: 1. There is a desert on the moon where the dreamer sinks so deeply in to the ground that she reaches hell; 2. A drunken woman falls into the water and comes out renewed and sober; 3. A horde of small animals frightens the dreamer. The animals increase to a tremendous size, and one of them devours the little girl; 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; and 5. An ascent into heaven where pagan dances are being celebrated; and a descent into hell, where angels are doing good deeds. A Child's Garden of Dreams is a pillar of the standard wind ensemble canon, performerd hundreds of times by a variety of professional and collegiate ensembles and recorded on several critically acclaimed albums. Maslanka has also set the work for full orchestra (C672).

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