David Maslanka

A Child's Garden of Dreams

David Maslanka's A Child's Garden of Dreams for Wind Ensemble, written in 1981, takes inspiration from the writings of Carl Jung, specifically the dreams recounted in Man And His Symbols. Five of the twelve dreams recounted by Jung serve as motifs and titles for the five movements of this composition: 1. There is a desert on the moon where the dreamer sinks so deeply in to the ground that she reaches hell; 2. A drunken woman falls into the water and comes out renewed and sober; 3. A horde of small animals frightens the dreamer. The animals increase to a tremendous size, and one of them devours the little girl; 4. A drop of water is seen as it appears when looked at through a microscope. The girl sees that the drop is full of tree branches. This portrays the origin of the world; and 5. An ascent into heaven where pagan dances are being celebrated; and a descent into hell, where angels are doing good deeds. A Child's Garden of Dreams is a pillar of the standard wind ensemble canon, performerd hundreds of times by a variety of professional and collegiate ensembles and recorded on several critically acclaimed albums. Maslanka has also set the work for full orchestra (C672).