Dreams have fascinated us for thousands of years. They can give us inspiration, true horror, or clarity on a real-life situation; they make us laugh or cry; sometimes they seem to warn us about something, predict the future, or reinvent the past.

Not surprisingly, the very human act of dreaming has inspired all kinds of art and music. Rather than explain the science behind dreams (of which I know very little), let’s dive into a few musical interpretations of dreams.

First of all, a confession – the main reason for this post is that I wanted to include a piece I wrote called Fantasmagoria. It’s three movements long and for flute & organ. The movements document: 1) Fantasmagoria – a calm, pleasant dream that corrupts into a hideous nightmare 2) Oneironautics – the act of being in control of one’s dream 3) Deja Vu – the feeling that you’ve experienced this before (in this case, an unchaning single-note pulse).

If we look at the body of art music, I think we can boil down dream-music into two categories: 1) sweet, gentle, calming works 2) wilder, fantastical visions.

Starting with category 1 – sweet, gentle, calming works. Common characteristics of these pieces include simpler, more predictable harmonies, a consistent, slower rhythmic pulse, and hummable melodies. They are more often written for solo instrument, or for two players. They appeal to our musically conservative side, hinting at music we already know – perhaps lullabies or songs of tenderness. They put our minds in safe places and make us feel love and warmth.

Reverie was one of Claude Debussy earlier works, and captures a delightful, pleasant daydream of sorts.

Francisco Tárrega wrote this gentle dream for solo guitar.

Franz Liszt was known for writing-impossible-to-play piano music, but his Liebestraum is almost manageable. On top of that, its supremely cheesy melody and sentimental mood make it a regular encore at piano concerts or romantic piano CDs.

And speaking of cheese, the master of all sentimental cheese was Robert Schumann. He was so cheesy that Brahms tried to out-cheese him, but failed. So Brahms decided to go after his wife instead.

Let’s just stay in cheese zone for another moment and move on to Gabriel Fauré‘s haunting “Après un rêve” (after a dream).

Alexander Scriabin was a true nut job, and that is historical fact, not opinion. Even so, his music is pretty amazing, and strongly influenced by his interest in philosophy and theosophy.

This first category of dream music is mostly romantic schlock – but there are some modern pieces that fit here, including George Crumb‘s Dream Sequence, which uses a glass harmonica (invented by Benjamin Franklin, no less!)

Now, the second category of dream-music: wilder, fantastical visions. These works are more likely to challenge our musical expectations a bit, perhaps with sudden changes of harmony or meter, broader dynamic range, and lack that singable melody. Like a wild dream, they don’t go where we expect them to go – sometimes making us dizzy, filling us with a sense of dread, or even frightening us into waking up.

Going right back to Debussy – Reverie might have been a child’s innocent daydream, but his later dreams turn much more erotic. Besides the dreamy harmonies and short, gesture-based melodies, the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is based on a poem in which a faun gets aroused by nymphs before falling asleep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzF21CFJFE

Engelbert Humperdinck might win the award for composer with the funniest name (an old-school Butterscotch Cabbagepatch?) In his most famous opera, Hansel and Gretel, there is a lovely bedtime prayer which is sung, followed by a dream sequence based on the prayer’s hymn-like tune.

Tōru Takemitsu wrote many pieces with “dream” in the title, and most of them paint an impressionistic and atonal dreamscape.

If that was a little too modern for you, the next piece is by the tried-and-true Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. His First Symphony bears the title “Winter Dreams”, and really is more of a typical symphony than a dream-piece, but hey, there must be some dreaming in there somewhere.

Bedřich Smetana wrote a series of solo piano works on dreams. They’re a little more involved than the earlier solo piano works, with a broad range of emotion, which is why I think they belong in the category of wild, fantastical dream music.

Sergei Prokofiev wrote a symphonic poem on dreams – it’s also fairly conservative, but too dramatic to be in the first category.

And of course, no music collection based on dreams would be complete without Hector Berlioz‘s bad opium trip, where he dreams of witches and an orgy around his dead body.

Next up: if you listen to one of these pieces while falling asleep, does it affect your dreams? Happy dreaming!

My newsfeed exploded this week with posts about Ludwig van Beethoven‘s 250 birthday.

trigger warning: If you love Beethoven, be prepared to hate me.
2nd trigger warning: I’m about to mention abortion, but this post has nothing to do with the being pro-life or pro-choice. So for goodness sake, don’t comment on it. If you must send me a hate-comment, do so because I am throwing shade at Beethoven.

There’s a pro-life meme that’s been travelling around for some time – there are variations, but it goes something like this:

“A syphilic mother of eight handicapped children becomes pregnant. Should she have an abortion? If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven!”

Just for the record, this is incorrect. Ludwig was the 2nd born, and the oldest surviving child in his family, and I won’t get into the logic issues of the argument.

So it’s Beethoven’s 250th birthyear. That means that musicians all around the world will be programming MORE Beethoven on their concerts this year. I can’t say I’m particularly excited.

To be clear: I love the music of the great composers of the past. There is a reason that masterpieces stand the test of time – their message is enduring, they are crafted perfectly, or they evoke a sublime reaction. If I didn’t think it was worth keeping these pieces alive, this blog wouldn’t exist.

So here’s my Beefoven with Beethoven. You can hear his symphonies performed live every year – at least the best six of the nine. If you look at orchestra repertoire in general, the composers are overwhelmingly dead. This chart from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra takes into account thousands of concerts and shows living composers represent 12.3% of pieces performed (and I get a sense that the chart is bragging about how high that number is). A rough estimation based on this chart suggests that Beethoven is performed 25% of the time – one composer, getting twice the amount of performances as ALL living composers combined.

Ok, so his music is great. It’s hard to argue against that. But let’s go back to the “would you abort Beethoven” meme. Today, a syphilic mother of eight handicapped children needn’t worry that she might abort the next Beethoven; nobody will perform the child’s music anyway, because they’re too occupied with overplaying the first Beethoven’s music.

Now throw in the concerns that orchestras are failing to attract young or diverse audiences. Living composers are far more likely to bring musical ideas to the stage that would attract new audiences – not only with new sounds and styles, but also by addressing current issues or events. And using living composers would allow orchestras to actually diversify their repertoire and include more women and non-white composers. (go back to the chart from the Baltimore Symphony. A whopping 1.3% of music performed is by women composers. The chart doesn’t even mention race; I’m willing to bet it’s because the percentage of black composers would be even lower than women.)

But no, no, no, let’s not change anything. Let’s play Beethoven’s 5th for the birthday boy for the 5,555,555th time.

The news has been ablaze this week regarding the burning and collapse of the roof of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris – but I don’t mean to make light of the situation. Terrible puns aside, many people were saddened by the damage, regardless of religious faith or nationality. Humanity has claimed Notre Dame as a universal work of art: loved, admired, maybe even “owned” by all.

What I found fascinating was the immense response on social media. I was amazed at how many of my contacts had a personal connection to Notre Dame, whether it was religious (the seat of the Catholic Church in France), musical (concern for its magnificent organ), artistic (loss of a centuries-old work of art), or just emotional (remember that romantic weekend in Paris? Ahhh…). It’s no surprise that a billion dollars were raised in two days for the restoration of this building.

And of course, since this is 2019, there was an immediate response criticizing the Notre Dame donations as unimportant compared to the ongoing needs of climate change, deep poverty, hunger, sex trafficking, and more. After all, we’re talking about a lump of stones, not human lives. And yet, while those needs are significant, very real, and desperately need to be addressed, I don’t think we should so quickly condemn the efforts to preserve this monument.

Works of art, like Notre Dame cathedral, remind us that we are an insignificant speck in a long history of humanity. The cathedral has been a symbol of France for centuries, and will (probably) remain so until the apocalypse. It might be an active church now, but who knows, one day it might be treated like an ancient Greek temple – a pilgrimage for tourists who care nothing for religion, but instead seek it for its beauty; or perhaps it makes them think about their own mortality and their place in the universe.

And still, from the perspective of the universe, the cathedral went up and burned down in the blink of an eye (not to mention, humanity itself is just a flash in the universe’s pan). Maybe we’re thinking about it all wrong. Maybe all art needs to be treated as fleeting, whether it’s a 5 minute performance that will never be repeated (a jazz improvisation), a drama that enjoys a 50-year popularity (a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical), or a 4000-year-old monument (Stonehenge or the Pyramids). Some art might last longer than others, but really, is 6,000 years of history anything more than a fart in the wind compared to the history of earth?

And so, in honor of France, and Notre Dame, here is the Patrie (Homeland) Overture by the iconic French composer George Bizet.