Song of a Dreaming Sparrow

Song of a Dreaming Sparrow for guitar and string quartet,13.'

On November 12, 2022, Sharon Isbin and the Pacifica Quartet performed the world premiere of Joseph Schwantner's Song of a Dreaming Sparrow at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The work was commissioned by the 92nd Street Y. The composer describes his new work: "I have long admired my friend and colleague, guitarist Sharon Isbin for her evocative and compelling performances. Song of a Dreaming Sparrow is the second of two works that I have written for her. The first, From Afar, a fantasy for guitar and orchestra, was commissioned by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in 1988. Later, she played and recorded the chamber version with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.”

As a young boy, I studied the classical guitar, an instrument with clear, articulate sounds and rich sonic qualities. Curiously, I would often practice with my ear resting firmly on the instrument's soundboard and was able to hear the instrument in a strikingly new way. The guitar’s soundboard, with its strong and immediate vibrations, drew me into a vast sound space of incisive articulations and resonant harmonics and gave me a unique perspective into the instrument's tonal characteristics. Only later was I able to more fully appreciate how those intimate musical experiences with the guitar had become a pervasive and personal part of my musical DNA as a composer.

Poetry plays an important role in my music and provides a powerful wellspring of musical ideas derived from the imagery that poetry provokes. I have been especially drawn to the work of Henry David Thoreau, an essayist, author, poet and philosopher whose words and poetry perfectly encapsulates and embrace the transcendental spirit of 19th-century New England life.

The title, Song of a Dreaming Sparrow is a line from Thoreau’s, “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack River” a narrative of a boat trip Thoreau took with his brother John in 1839: “At intervals we were serenaded by the song of a dreaming sparrow…” Throughout the work, the music draws inspiration from a variety of Thoreau’s words: “faintest light that fall on earthly ground, drifting amid the saffron colored clouds, a sigh of a willow, the valley echoed the sound to the stars.”

The introduction opens quietly (“...within the twilight of the dawn”) with a sonority presented by the quartet that is then immediately followed by an arpeggiated chord in the guitar. These primary melodic and harmonic materials form the basis for much of the music that is later developed throughout the work."

Sharon Isbin and the Pacifica Quartet performed Song of a Dreaming Sparrow again on November 18, 2022 for the Los Alamos Concert Association in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A further performance occurred at the Aspen Music Festival Recital on August 10, 2023, at the Harris Concert Hall in Aspen, CO