Moon Song

Having been given the prompt in a “Composition for Non-Majors” class to compose a piece of music inspired by the night sky, my thoughts first landed on the French painter Henri Rousseau, whose paintings, some of which include the night sky as one of many subjects, I find to be deeply evocative and at times even soothing to look at. His night skies are always calm, almost empty of stars, with a single luminous moon casting a silvery glow over the whole scene. There are many paintings of his that make use of this motif, such as A Carnival Evening or The Sleeping Gypsy, but my favorite painting in this category is The Dream, a lush, dense, dark-toned image. I won’t burden this program note with a lengthy description of the painting, but there is a poem written by Rousseau to accompany it which I find equally evocative and atmospheric:

Yadwigha dans un beau rêve

S’étant endormie doucement

Entendait les sons d’une musette

Dont jouait un charmeur bien pensant.

Pendant que la lune reflète

Sur les fleurs, les arbres verdoyants,

Les fauves serpents prêtent l’oreille

Aux airs gais de l’instrument.

“Yadwigha in a beautiful dream

Having fallen gently to sleep

Heard the sounds of a reed instrument

Played by a well-intentioned snake charmer.

As the moon reflected

On the flowers, the verdant trees,

The wild snakes lend an ear

To the joyous tunes of the instrument.”

I endeavored in writing this short solo to try and discover what sounds might be found in the world that this painting and poem depict. What results is a musical portrait of the jungle, and the sounds that it hears at night.

Recorded March 17, 2025