SKU: CN.S11194

The story of a sleepless night, Dreams and Fancies uses musical episodes to depict definite pictures: the three accented pulses of the main theme signifying a kind of fate, a demented waltz which breaks down, a love theme in the middle, then a wild jazz party. The end is a huge climax - a grand ceremony in which the lovers marry, but haunted by the three accented pulses of the first theme, representing a dark fate.

This is a story of a sleepless night: fancy is the old English word for a musical fantasy. There are musical episodes, some of which are associated with definite pictures: the three accented pulses of the main theme signifying a kind of fate, a demented waltz which breaks down, a love theme in the middle, then a wild jazz party. The themes all come together as the music becomes more exciting towards the end with thematic interjections appearing as flashbacks. The end is a huge climax - a grand ceremony in which the lovers marry, but haunted by the three accented pulses of the first theme, representing a dark fate. Musically the piece is unifying in two ways. Firstly, all the themes are built from the opening 15 bars. Secondly, the pulse of the music remains virtually constant with each beat around 76 per minute. This means that the tempi need to relate to each other: a difficult task for the conductor!