Project Description
Alto Saxophone and Piano
2009
30 min.
Listen Now
Preview Score
Movements
- Jordan
- Credo in unum Deum
- Watch the Night With Me (Part 1)
- Watch the Night With Me (Part 2)
- Wie Bist Du, Seele?
- Whale Story (O Sacred Head Now Wounded)
Commissioned by
Joseph and Janet Lulloff for their son Jordan
Program Note
Tone Studies is a set of six pieces which are for the most part slow and quiet. There is no really fast music in the whole piece, and only two fortissimo passages. I chose the title Tone Studies because each movement, and in fact each moment, offers a large number of choices about quality of sound, choices that will evolve with deepening study. The key to successful performance for both pianist and saxophonist is patience – patience with tempi, patience with fermatas, patient and careful listening into tones produced by each instrument and by the two together. It is very easy to play without deep listening. This music asks and requires that you listen deeply. When you do, a special settled heart energy arises through the performance.
Program note by David Maslanka
Note to the Performers
The title “Tone Studies” says very little about what is actually in the music. I chose it because each movement offers a large number of choices about quality of sound, choices that will continue to unfold over time. Each study is a small and passionate essay – a “short story” without words.
Four of the six studies make reference to chorale melodies:
- No. 1: Christ, Unser Herr, zum Jordan kam
- Christ our Lord cam to the river Jordan
- No. 2: Credo in unum Deum
- We believe in one God
- No. 5: Wie bist du, Seele
- Soul, how have you become so unhappy?
- No. 6: O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden
- O Sacred Head Now Wounded
The original melodies can all be found in the 371 Four-Part Chorales by J.S. Bach.
The sixth study has the title “Whale Story”. I wrote a very brief story that should be read aloud as part of any performance. It can be read aloud by the soloist, or by someone other than the performers. The text is in both the score and the part.
–David Maslanka
Whale Story
(O Sacred Head Now Wounded)
Why should God have incarnated only in human form?
(a brief story about whales)
In the sixty million years or so the great whales have had, both on land and in the oceans, there have been numerous, and in fact innumerable, great beings among them.
In fact, it turns out now that all the great whales are either highly developed bodhisattvas or Buddhas.
And in fact it turns out that the Earth’s oceans are a Buddha Pure Land, and when you pass from this existence it is to be hoped for rebirth as a god or a great whale.
In fact it turns out that the Pure Land oceans of the Earth are a training ground for Buddhas across all space and time.
We are loved by the great whales, and they, serenely riding the waves of birth and death, will die for us so that we may come to our enlightenment.
The end.
Further Reading
Interview with Tiffany Woods (2003)
In May 2003, Tiffany Woods emailed David a series of questions in the course of writing a paper. She was a student at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and taking a Band Literature course [...]
From the Maslanka Archive – No. 34, Julian Velasco’s Interview of Gary Green
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature Julian Velasco's interview of Gary Green from the Wharton Center in East Lansing, MI from October 24, 2017.
From the Maslanka Archive – No. 33, John Floridis’s Interview of David
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature an episode from Montana Public Radio's Musician's Spotlight featuring John Floridis interviewing David about his music and background as a composer.
From the Maslanka Archive – No. 32, Julian Velasco’s Interview of David – Part 2
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 2 of Julian Velasco's interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.
From the Maslanka Archive – No. 31, Julian Velasco’s Interview of David – Part 1
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 1 of Julian Velasco's interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 110, Images of Hell
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David's works that reference Hell: Hell's Gate, A Child's Garden of Dreams, and O Earth, O Stars.
From the Maslanka Archive – No. 29, David on Dreaming and the Unconscious Mind
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature a speech David gave on matters of dreaming and the unconscious mind before a performance of A Child's Garden of Dreams by the James Madison University Wind Symphony.
From the Maslanka Archive – No. 15, A Child’s Garden of Dreams
From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and work. This week, we are excited to feature pictures from David's residency with Stephen K. Steele and the Illinois State University Wind Symphony for a performance of A Child's Garden of Dreams in 2012.
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 72, Life
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions that focus on the spirit of life and living: Unending Stream of Life, Traveler, and “Movement 4” from A Child's Garden of Dreams.
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 69, Dream Space
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions (of which there are literally dozens to choose from) that explore a vast array of dream space: A Child's Garden of Dreams, Traveler, and California.
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 66, Vistas
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions that emulate various kinds of vistas: Symphony No. 8, A Child's Garden of Dreams, and Symphony No. 6.
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 63, Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr.
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions that Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr. and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Wind Ensemble championed: A Child's Garden of Dreams, Symphony No. 4, and Tears.
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 48, Water Music
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we continue to look at more of David's music that uses water as a symbol or motif: A Child's Garden of Dreams, Sea Dreams: Concerto for Two Horns and Wind Ensemble, and UFO Dreams: Concerto for Euphonium and Wind Ensemble, Movement II - "The Water is Wide."
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 39, Dreams & Meditations
Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three compositions that specifically mention "dreaming" or "meditation" in their title: A Child's Garden of Dreams, Movement I, Sea Dreams: Concerto for Two Horns and Wind Ensemble, Movement III, and Recitation Book, Movement I, "Broken Heart: Meditation on the chorale melody Der du bist drei in einigkeit."
David Maslanka: Works for Younger Wind Ensembles
Here are more than twenty works for wind ensemble, arranged in approximate ascending order of difficulty, with commentary by David Maslanka
The Nature of Consciousness: Correspondence
We'd love to encourage you to write to David with questions or comments that you have about his music. He loves hearing your thoughts and feelings. Get in touch on the Contact page. June 6, [...]
Recording the Wind Ensemble Music of David Maslanka
Mark Morette of Mark Custom Recording shares his extensive experience in recording wind ensembles.
Remarks before the premiere of A Child’s Garden of Dreams, Book 2
Remarks made 7 December 2008 in Boone, NC before the premiere of A Child's Garden of Dreams, Book 2, by the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra, James Allen Anderson, conductor. I'm not going to say [...]
Some things that are true: Reflections on being an artist at the end of the 20th century
Society of Composers Incorporated Region VIII Conference, University of Montana at Missoula. Keynote address by David Maslanka – November 20, 1998 As soon as one speaks about “truth” there will be objections. Since we live [...]
An Analytical Study of David Maslanka’s A Child’s Garden of Dreams
The five movements of A Child's Garden of Dreams are inspired by five dreams selected from Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols. Dr. David Booth's doctoral dissertation on A Child's Garden of Dreams provides an analysis of each of the work's five [...]
