Symphonic Band (3:53) - November 1995

Chimerical Fanfare (MIDI)

This was my experiment in thematic content. You see, I had a really interesting dream one night. The next morning I said to myself, "Hey, I should write a song about that dream." When I finally got around to writing the song, I said to myself, "Hey, I forgot what the dream was about." So I decided to write a song with a dreamlike quality instead.

The opening fanfare sets the mood with a four part trumpet line. In the TC Williams Band, we actually had only four trumpets to carry this difficult line. I tried to make this section sound like the opening of an overture.

The next part is a rubato trombone solo followed by a trumpet solo. The end of the trumpet solo was 'dumbed-down' several times over (the original line was a diminished chord sixteenth note run on successive pitches all the way to a C6).

Next, the woodwinds take over with the 'dance' theme. I tried to make it wild and energetic. This theme makes use of the percussion section to provide the rhythm with shakers, claves, vibraslaps, etc. When writing this, I recalled the words of my junior high band director who complained about school band composers like Elliot del Borgo who make use of every percussion instrument in the box without worrying about the schools' actual budgets for percussion!

After the dance, the melody becomes slow and drowsy, like the period just before you wake up after having slept in one morning. This leads back into the opening fanfare for the finale.

This piece was performed by the TC Williams Concert Band at their winter concert in 1995 (my senior year). I do have a recording on videotape but never did get a high quality recording of it.