"Dream in White on White" (1992) is a musical landscape on the non-chromatic ("white") tones and non-tempered intervals of Pythagorean diatonic tuning. It is a response to the clarity of those sounds, and to the treeless, windswept expanses of western Alaska.
"Night Peace" (1977) is based entirely on a single melodic line, which is heard only once, sung by the solo soprano at the end of the piece. This melody was conceived in the luminous stillness of a moonless winter night.
"The Far Country of Sleep" (1988) was composed in memory of the late Morton Feldman. Although he was an unrepentant urbanite, Feldman's music is, for me, haunted by the idea of the sublime landscape, imaginary or real. The title of this homage to him is borrowed from a poem by John Haines. It evokes in my mind both the distant dreamscapes of the Arctic and tha...