Catherine Fields

"Fantasy for Piano and Wind Band" was inspired by the memoirs of Antoine Saint-Exupery, aviator, writer, and poet, and the general experience of aviation. The piece uses the concept of the "Fantasie;" a form which gives way to the composer's imagination, freely wandering musically and thematically, and connects it to the experience of flying. During the Romantic period, the archetype of "The Wanderer," which often went in tandem with the Fantasie, represented a person who felt a stranger wherever they went. The theme of the "wanderer" can be heard in the first solo entrance of the piano. It returns again in the second movement, transformed into something more contemplative. In this piece I attempt to capture not only the exhilaration and profound beauty of soaring through the heavens, but also the loneliness and sense of homelessness of someone who is never in one place for long.
A pilot must have tremendous trust in their instruments and craft. Because any of these things could fail fatally, the contemplation of life and death is also a theme in this piece. The second movement in particular evokes the unease of flying over a large body of water at night. The slow, deliberate beginning of the movement feels as though it is suspended in the air, only drifting, as an ascending motive makes gradual entrances. The ascending motive is then juxtaposed with the "Lux Aeterna" Gregorian chant from the Requiem Mass (played by the piano), almost like a prayer for light to scatter the strange beckoning darkness. The entrance of the low brass depicts the feeling of looking down and seeing the depth of an abyssal body of water.
The music wanders through many themes to reflect a pilot’s wandering mind—one might hear loneliness, wonder, or reminiscence. However, the piece ends optimistically with the "Lux Aeterna" taking its final form as a resplendent fanfare to illustrate a light that scatters the darkness and shatters all fear.

– C.F

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