Dream Rainbow Dream Thunder

Dream Rainbow Dream Thunder is a fantasy for orchestra, derived for the most part from a single evening’s improvisation on the piano. Although I don’t normally compose at the piano, I sometimes find late evening inspirations helpful in releasing ideas. These will then be worked out in detail the next morning at the drawing table.

On the occasion when I improvised what I subsequently notated in this piece, I was living in Switzerland. I had just returned with Eleanor James from a visit to Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig’s castle in the Bavarian mountains. Rain and mist shrouded the mountain as we hiked up to pay our respects to this strange edifice, conceived out of love for the music of Richard Wagner. Wagner is detectable in my improvisation, but so are a lot of other influences. I don’t think it matters much. Dream Rainbow Dream Thunder joins yesterday with days of long ago and tomorrow with days that will never be. R. Murray Schafer