Joseph Schwantner: "From a Dark Millennium"
Joseph Schwantner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, is most best-known in the wind world for ...and the mountains rising nowhere, and has written many fantastic pieces for winds; among these is "From a Dark Millennium." Below you can find information on the piece and a recording.
Joseph Schwantner, From a Dark Millennium
Ithaca College Wind Ensemble, Rodney Winther, conductor
From a Dark Millennium was commissioned by a consortium of college band directors from the Midwest in 1980 (the Mid-America Band Directors Association), and premiered by the University of Northern Illinois Wind Ensemble in 1981. It is a re-working of a movement from Schwantner’s earlier chamber work, Music of Amber. This work marks the only occasion in which Schwantner has used the same source material for two different works. The title is drawn from a poem written by Schwantner:
SANCTUARY...
Deep forests
a play of Shadows
most ancient murmurings
from a dark millennium
the trembling fragrance
of the music of amber
-Joseph Schwantner
- Program Note by Nikk Pilato