DANCE SYMPHONY was composed at the request of conductor Jung Ho Pak for the
Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts International Chamber
Orchestra. The work was premiered on December 13, 1989.
The first movement is in the form of an arch, and plays with dramatic conventions normally
associated with opera music or film scores. Pathos alternates with irony, and the whole is
framed with a music of simple, unfettered exuberance.
The second movement is based on the Ländler, the German precursor to the Waltz; this
dance-inspired music is the source of the work's title.
The third movement is marked "stately" because it is a march; it is "meditative", because the
motor elements which drive the march are absent at the beginning. As the piece progresses,
they are gradually reinstated -- only to be withdrawn again at the work's close, leaving the bare
skeleton.
All of the music in DANCE SYMPHONY was inspired by the mountain village of Idyllwild,
California: its music, its art … and its magical forest. – RL