Ode To Music

Having written a wind quintet for the Dorians, upon which they lavished playing of great precision and elegance, I was warmly disposed towards them. So it was no surprise when, in a burst of friendship I blurted out, "Is there a piece of music you all wished-no dreamed-had been written for wind quintet? I will transcribe for your Quintet anything you choose".

After much conversation the players settled upon Shubert's song "An die Musik" - a little miracle in two verses which is often the last song sung on the last recital of a distinguished lieder singer's concluding career.

My dear friend and piano-champion, Marc Peloquin, heard this arrangement and posited: "David, I think it would also sound well on the piano". He began then to transcribe my transcription which started me thinking: Could this become the basis of a grand piano fantasy much as, in 1978, I transmuted my chaste Acrostic Song into a gleaming, grandiose Virtuoso Alice? Yes, I decided, it could work and set to the task quickly and with passion.

To Music is the result- 9 minutes that Franz Schubert might have written had he been enamored of Richard Wagner and at the same time a piano student of Franz Liszt!

– DAVID DEL TREDICI