I will be posting the anonymous entries to the "Dreamscapes" Chamber Music Composition Competition here!  The entries will be hidden to regular users until the competition closes on Sunday, August 13th, 2023.

The competition results and winners have now been determined:

Don't forget to take the satisfaction survey!

To vote in the popular voting polls go here:

For the competition announcement and rules and guidelines go here:

 

Entry A - "Sonata for a Dream" by @Samuel1

(for Alto Sax and Piano)

This piece is meant to encapsulate the various stages and emotions a dream can put you through. In 3 movements, this piece displays how disjointed dreams (or even just one dream) can feel in a night's sleep. The first movement is whimsical, but still a bit confusing, resembling flight as you may experience in a lucid dream. The second movement is the inevitable fall back to earth, but the confusion is still there and takes on a new form in weirdness, which can still be playful at times, but often can make a dream scary. The final movement is a battle between daybreak and darkness, a time when early morning dreams take place, the ones most vividly remembered. It is adventuresome and playful, but still has hints of pain in it- a mix of the first and second movements- most closely resembling reality.

Entry B - "a knee in the grass through my eyelashes" by @GreenGiantCanOfCorn

(for Soprano and Piano)

This piece was constructed around the accompanying poem. The poem depicts the listener (you), entrenched in a dream. The narrator (again, you, the listener) is stratified between three levels: the needer, the object of your own desire, and the observer of the entire scenario. Within the text, these three cognitive levels are distinguished by italicization and paragraph alignment. In this way, the text is able to detail a complex dreamscape of self-doubt and need through its use of form, without imposing a specific narrative or temporality.

To detail the compositional aspects of this piece, the musical form serves to highlight the dreamlike non-linearity of thought and memory. It's not that this piece is formless; rather, it is incredibly aware of form, employing it as a cognitive guide. Section boundaries are often blurred with either extremely unpredictable or extremely familiar materials. Even silence is used, stored, and recalled as a familiar material. The form is real because the listener needs it to be. Therefore, it is indistinct and varied in its macro shape, and confident and intense in its phrase- and section-level materials.

The piece also uses technology: two E-bows on the piano, with sustain and sostenuto pedals to allow infinite oscillation. Additionally, the soprano sings into the piano to sympathetically vibrate the piano's strings. 

Not that this needs stating, but stylistically, this isn't supposed to be a "pretty" piece just because it uses harmony. For better or worse, existing within the contemporary world means that listeners likely have instincts regarding functional harmony. This allows the piece to utilize such instincts to construct sectional contrasts between familiar and unfamiliar approaches to expectation and fulfillment. TLDR: on a structural level, this piece does not commit to any one method of utilizing harmony, and instead uses harmony as a concept to evade expectation.

This is a needy piece, a "waking up sweating and the sweat feels cold, and you can't tell if it's in a good way" kind of piece. a knee in the grass through my eyelashes centers the contradictions and anxieties present within the unconscious mind as we define our own personal truths.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be considered for this competition.

I would also add:

Entry C - "The Journey of Jason" by @Michalis

(for Violin and Piano)

The piece is inspired by the myth of Jason, which is an archetypal "dreamy" myth of a quest. Jason was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature.

Entry D - "Argonauta" by @Jordan Jinosko

(for Contrabass and Piano)

Argonauta is a piece written about a recurring dream I have had. In this dream, I am a sailor aboard a ship, and my crew members and I are attacked by cephalopods, creatures that wriggle toward us and overwhelm us with their tentacles. 

I titled the piece "Argonauta" since the word can refer to either nautical adventurers or a specific genus of octopuses with large eyes and webbed tentacles.

Musically, the disorienting tentacles are portrayed by intrusive use of the octatonic scale, which features eight notes that allow for a kind of harmonic ambiguity through use of inversional and transpositional symmetry.

Entry E - "The Escapist" by @ComposedBySam

(for Cello and Piano)

This piece is based on the conflict between the dream world and the silent misery of the awakening reality. The piece starts with a peaceful theme in A major which symbolises the detached, worryless, distant dream world an escapist creates to find comfort, safety and internal validation. But this world like any other is not free of flaws and as the first theme ends in the relative minor, the silent criticism of the creeping misery of reality follows leading the escapist to become agitated. He diverts his attention away from the illusory aspects of his dream world and in a way remains ignorant as the first theme plays again, but at the end of this recurring theme, he finally decides to confront reality face to face and in doing so he creates colourful dissonances. He no longer resists expressing sadness over his dreamy illusion and the piece ends in an unresolved manner, making it uncertain if it is indeed ever possible to reconcile reality with the dream image... And for that matter, is it even necessary?

Entry F - "Allegro in B flat major" by @44W74l4

(for Clarinet and Piano)

The main theme of the piece is inspired on a dream i had a week ago, i slept while listening to some music and i woke up at midnight, and I tried to write it down, the dream was about The Legend of  Zelda, i was helping a  lost korok to build a house ( i know, pretty weird) and that melody was playing in the background.

Entry G - "Rêverie Sentimental" by @expert21

(for Violin and Guitar)

Rêverie Sentimental uses a theme from an old piece which I decided to reuse after I dreamed of a girl one night. The piece depicts a Sentimental Daydream a young artist who is in love has while at work. The A Section of the piece intoduces the sentimental theme of the woman, while the B section represents a fantasy the young artist has about courting his love, before his thoughts once again turn back to the woman herself, repeating the A section. The transitions between the sections were supposed to have a hazy and wavy feel, as if the dream was changing.

 

Entry H - "OneiRomantica" by @AngelCityOutlaw

(for Synth/Piano and Bass Guitar)

My piece, inspired by dreams. Composed and arranged here for a ROMpler keyboard set to overlay a '90s piano patch with a floaty, atmospheric pad for added resonance, and a bass. I aimed to make it sound rather "exotic" and mysterious, yet at once inviting, familiar, whimsical and all with a romantic and adventurous flair. Like you awoke to find your bed suddenly taking the role of a sailboat, carrying you across a sunlit ocean and onto a sandy shore of freedom, love, beauty and eternal summer; a dreamworld you don't want to wake from.

I don't expect the sheet music transcription to be anyone's favorite, but I have limited time to make highly-detailed, pretty sheet music.

Entry I - "Lucidity" by @SorooshMHS

(for Electric Guitar and Flute/Voice)

I've finished my song for the Dreamscapes competition. Admittedly, I knew very little about dreams so I did some research, and the idea of lucid dreaming peaked my interest. According to German psychologist, Paul Tholey, a lucid dream has the following 7 characteristics:

1. Awareness of the dream state (orientation)
2. Awareness of the capacity to make decisions
3. Awareness of memory functions
4. Awareness of self
5. Awareness of the dream environment
6. Awareness of the meaning of the dream
7. Awareness of concentration and focus (the subjective clarity of that state)

My song is aptly titled Lucidity. It consists of a guitar as the polyphonic instrument, and a flute as the monophonic instrument. I wrote and recorded the guitar parts first, and I was aiming for an ambient and dreamy vibe. I achieved that with long drawn out chords, minor key and a relatively slow tempo. Other than the outro (where it alternates between the key of C and G), the song mostly stays in A minor, with a few diminished 7 chords for added tension, and a Cm chord in some spots, which is used as a chromatic mediant to the tonic chord. To be able to tell the story better, I wrote lyrics to go along with the flute melody. So the flute is essentially acting as a placeholder for a lead vocal. I'm just not a singer and out of the virtual instruments I had, this flute sounded the best. Voice is also a monophonic instrument so I felt like the flute is a good substitute

Here is a brief summary of the lyrics (full lyrics are included in the score): It starts with the protagonist falling asleep. He feels free, but very confused and unsure about where he is. He sees and hears absolutely nothing, making it very difficult to navigate the dream. However he suddenly realizes that he is in fact dreaming. Colors return to his consciousness, and he can finally see everything clearly. He feels powerful, and realizes he can now do anything in the dream. This is also reflected in the music by going to the relative major key. The piece suddenly ends without resolution, which represents him waking up

Please see attached for the PDF score and MP3 audio file

Thank you for this opportunity!

PS: I compose music in my DAW using MIDI, and this was the very first time I transcribed my music on staff notation. It was pretty difficult but I think it turned out alright 🙂

Entry J - "Stories for Violin and Piano" by @Composer from Europe

Stories for violin and piano is a composition of 3 movements. It is a very technical and challenging composition mainly in deep expression. Every movement have a different mood and different Story. It is a full of mystery, darkness but too the happiness out of life. It is a my stories, but I do not tell about it, because I think it it a more valuable, if the listeners to imagine by the music his own stories. So let´s listen and dive into your inner world.

The stories are the usual stories in my dreams. Sometimes they have meaning, sometimes they are just feelings. Sometimes they are like very long stories that many times appear in my dreams and the stories continue. I have a slightly different world in my dreams. I have imaginary places that I already recognize because they appear to me repeatedly. I love this dream world because I mostly feel good there, because there are mainly good things and good stories.

Entry K - "A Strange World" by @spike473

(arranged for Oboe and Harp)

This is a fantasy-soundtrack-themed piece originally written for symphonic orchestra, but reduced to oboe and harp for the purposes of the "Dreamscapes" competition.  It is based on a short story I wrote a while back, which tells of a boy who was miserable at his difficult life.  One day, he was near his breaking point, uttered to himself a silent prayer, and afterwards fell into a deep sleep.  There, in a cosmic dream space, he met an angelic girl, who would mystically fulfill his desire of a satisfying life he never had, and they would spend the dream together, in the so-called “strange world” this composition attempts to narrate.  The oboe represents the boy, the harp the girl.  This piece has the two instruments sounding back, forth, and together as if the boy and girl interact; and concurrently paints the idyllic dream world.  The piece starts lonely, with the oboe “voicing” the boy’s silent prayer, with the harp commencing the boy encountering the girl in his dream.

Entry L - "cathédrale électronique" by @Paweł Siek

(for flute [with glissando headjoint and circular breathing] and piano [with e-bows])

"cathédrale électronique" refers to aesthetics undergoing algorithmic transformations. The piece is a study of a slow, lulling and dangerously beautiful "immersion" in the sound world "without breaths". Thus, it refers to the state of sleep, immersion in a different reality, in which "other breaths" determine the course of time and shape an imaginary space - in this case, an underwater, sunken cathedral. During sleep, the rate of breathing follows your imagination. It also happens that breathing stops - in sleep apnea.

The starting point are the harmonies present in "Jeux d'eau" by M. Ravel and "La Cathédrale engloutie" by C. Debussy, processed algorithmically in a program written for the needs of the piece - in order to generate qualitatively new, water-dream harmonies.

Wide-range glissandi, possible to achieve thanks to the use of the glissando head, harmonize with the idea of using permanent breath in the piece. The piano part is mostly based on extended and stable "sound planes". On this instrument, one of the few ways to extract them, while creating further opportunities for modeling continuous sound, is to use e-bows placed on the strings.

Entry M - "Relentless Terror" by @AlexeySavelyev

(for Soprano and Cello)

I would really want you to listen to the music first before you read this, as I think music tells everything. But in case you already listened to it and have questions or rather anyway read something about it while listening, here you go: 

This piece is tracking one of my nightmares I am having for 3 or 4 months already. Amongst other different nightmares my brain is producing for some reason, I thought this dream would be fitting for this competition, as the unsettling feeling it gave me throughout the time I was experiencing it instantly gave me an idea of using this semi avant-garde style for composing it, when I saw the announcement for the competition. It follows a nightmare I was having of a day marked by a nuclear alarm and then a proceeding blast which I was failing to escape. As the blast emerged, my brain restarted the nightmare, the same scenario, as if it was not sure what was following afterwards (I think that is because I have never experienced it in real life, and hopefully never will), it was only on 3rd or 4th attempt of escaping the blast and trying different paths of doing so (and failing) did I realize it was a dream and managed to wake up in cold sweat. 

I used a female voice (dramatic soprano) and a cello for covering the whole register so I can lead and sort of tell the story from a 3rd person view. The music follows some thematic material, stated in the beginning, throughout the piece, it also has some "interesting" time signatures made on purpose, indicated throughout notation what this music is all about. 

I think the piece would hit the listener harder if it was performed live, but unfortunately I am unable to do a live recording of it and I rather not fake it via mockuping instruments, so unfortunately as for mp3 rendition, you are left with the midi of Noteperformer.

Entry N - "dreamscape for alto flute and piano" by @José de Azevedo Souza

This piece is for alto flute and piano and is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s impassioned poem A Dream within a Dream, closely following the rhythmic contours of the text but played by the alto flute, based on the second and third of Messiaen’s Modes of Limited Transposition resulting in pandiatonic music in an impassioned mood reflected by the active piano part.

Entry O - "Wind's Lament" by @veps

(for Alto Saxophone and Vibraphone)

Dreams have the strange effect of being familiar yet foreign. You find yourself in a strange place doing strange things, yet you think nothing of it until you wake. Two instruments I feel convey this foreign familiarity are Saxophone and Vibraphone. Saxophone has a rich and alluring timbre, and its overall exclusion from classical music only adds to the uniqueness of the intriguing textures it can create. The swells this instrument can create are reminiscent of a gust of wind. Vibraphone, well you can't really get dreamier than Vibraphone. The bright, sweet tones that sustain endlessly are reminiscent of a dreamy song.  

This piece is about wind. Throughout, two instruments flow slowly through space and time, interacting with each other, blending with each other. At the end, a coda of wind chimes, and the wind that makes them sing.

Entry P - "Profane Scenes of Prophetic Dreams" by @popsinn

(for Trombone and Piano)

In writing this piece, I went through and rejected various ideas and concepts until I ultimately realized that I do not pay attention to my dreams very much. Not that I don’t have them, but it’s just that I don’t think much of them, except in some extreme cases. After this creative struggle of a few weeks, I decided to take inspiration from a common literary device- the prophetic dream. 

A prophetic dream is a dream that symbolically- or rarely literally- portrays an event that will soon happen to the dreamer. Notable examples (most of which influenced this music) include:

• Pontius Pilate’s wife sees in a dream that if Jesus Christ is condemned by her and her husband’s counsel, they will lose their monarchical authority and suffer.
• Penelope of Homer’s Odyssey dreams of an eagle killing a large flock of geese, representing her husband Odysseus’ termination of her flock of suitors.
• Chaucer’s The Deth of Blaunche relays both an ancient Greek example and the sickly narrator’s desire for such slumber to experience a prophetic dream, eventually realizing that one he already had came true.
• God relates various visions unto important Israelite prophets in the Old Testament so that they may consider their actions, and predict the events of the New Testament.

Generally, the piece follows this semi-programmatic form:

• The sleeping protagonist experiences a prophetic dream, growing increasingly detailed and disturbing
• They wake up and go about their day trying to ignore what they saw in their sleep
• They begin to see signs of their dream occuring in the conscious world
• The protagonist breaks down and grows delirious
• Compositionally, I took inspiration from various styles vaguely surrounding the early 20th century, making use of short, measure-long motives that repeat throughout contrasting points of the piece. The harsh atonality represents the clashing of the protagonist’s mind, body, and soul as they slowly decline. As a trombonist myself, I took full advantage of the surprisingly wide range of the instrument, murmuring in the middle register, contemplating in the low, and screaming violently in the high. The piano combats this with ringing chords over nearly the entire range, as well as disturbed rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic counterpoint to the trombone.

I hope this piece will elicit images of major consequences to our actions and the truly disturbing things the mind is capable of.

Entry Q - "Deaf Pillows" by @Irene Huang

(for Violin and Piano)

“Deaf Pillows” is a single-movement work for piano and violin composed in the summer of 2023. It is inspired by the powerful theme of guilt in William Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth. In particular, this piece references Act V Scene 1, where Lady Macbeth is revealed to have slowly descended into madness since taking part in the murder of the former King. She sleepwalks nightly and is haunted by the invisible blood that cannot be washed off her hands. Upon seeing this, her doctor proclaims: “Infected minds / To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets” - hence the title of this work.

“Deaf Pillows” begins by setting a dreamy, mystical atmosphere to imitate a person’s temporary state of mind as they balance on the brink of sleep. It eventually slips into a dark, uneasy state of unconsciousness to foreshadow the tumult that is to come. The second half of the piece contrasts greatly with the first, as the music gradually builds in volume and intensity. The ending climax represents suicide, in particular that of Lady Macbeth, when she surrenders herself to death as self-retribution for her past sins. Throughout the work, the interval of a tritone plays a prevalent role to indicate the fearful apprehensiveness of regret. In the last few measures of the piece, the incessant tritone finally disappears to mark Lady Macbeth’s fateful end. In conclusion, “Deaf Pillows” is a work intended to highlight the disconcerting side of dreams and how remorse will always torment a person, whether it be in the wakefulness of daytime or the troubled oblivion of night.

Entry R - "Dreamscape for Cello and Piano" by @MTK

"Dreamscape" for cello and piano is a captivating and evocative composition that takes listeners on a journey through the enigmatic realm of dreams. Divided into two distinct movements, the piece captures the multifaceted nature of the dreaming mind.

The first movement, titled "Recurring Dreams," employs the form of a chaconne to convey the cyclical and ever-shifting nature of our subconscious reveries. The cello and piano engage in a delicate dance, weaving a hypnotic musical tapestry that evolves with each recurrence. The chaconne pattern, while consistently present, morphs in length, mirroring the unpredictable variations found within recurring dreams. This movement invites the audience to explore the fluid boundaries between reality and imagination, as the music subtly shifts, much like the elusive nature of dreams themselves.

The second movement, "Symbolic Dreams," introduces a quodlibet that intertwines two iconic musical works: Saint-Saëns' elegant "The Swan" and Chopin's Sonata in G Minor for cello and piano. This juxtaposition serves as a representation of how our waking experiences meld and recombine within the dream state, giving rise to a profound and often surreal symbolic reality. The cello and piano engage in a delicate dialogue, seamlessly interweaving melodies from both compositions, forging a harmonious yet uniquely dreamlike fusion. The result is a vivid musical tableau that captures the intricate interplay between memory, emotion, and subconscious interpretation.

Entry S - "VALS DE ESPASMOS DE UN SUEÑO DE AMOR" by @Sergio Moreno

(for Violin and Piano)

Dear reader,

I want to tell you a story that begins when the night and her train of stars arrives, a silent murmur steals your mind, and you get lost in nowhere. Everything is confusing, unsettling but also familiar and gentle. You’re no longer the owner of your body. The murmur changes into a seductive voice, a voice that sounds like yours but different. Suddenly all the words are wrong, but they make sense more than they ever did. You’re farthermost you’ve ever been.  You don’t know where you are, nevertheless, your body does and fights. Just to be interrupted by itself and by the voice. There’s no turning back, you succumb and surrender to the silent voice in your head, and you end up unable to say a word. You’re mesmerized. The piano represents the body and the violin the voice, they’re the same but different. This piece is a journey between dreams that would last forever after the end of the last sound, the end of the beloved one’s voice. A dream of death, a dream of love, that you follow with an unbearable trust in your eyes. There must be somebody there, someone you love.  This piece is a dialogue between the two instruments embodying the same person, the listener, who claims as own the voice of the one that’s the object of affection. This voice becomes a guide through the unknown familiarity of a dream, a last dream.

Thank you for reading.

Entry T - "Alessandro's Dream" by @ComposaBoi

(for Violin and Piano)

There is a program, but it's kind of a sensitive topic, so I'll say it's about a girl named Maria Goretti and those who would like to learn more can.

Entry U - "Liminal Dream" by @IanBoins

(for Baritone Sax and Piano)

This song is inspired by the idea of liminal spaces, and more specifically the song Heartache by Al Bowlly. This song is associated with an internet myth called the Backrooms which in itself is the idea of a parallel world entirely composed of various liminal spaces from empty offices to suburban streets at night. The connection I made between this song, liminal spaces, and dreams was that dreams (or least mine anyways) take place in relatively familiar places which I know I've never been to before. This same feeling of strange familiarity can also be felt by looking at pictures of liminal spaces which some find disturbing and others find comforting. The reason I was inspired by the song Heartache was because I feel like the song captures the same feeling of disturbing comfort that liminal spaces and some dreams encapsulate by using unusual chord movements which remain major but hint at something minor (I to V/iii for example), so I use similar moves throughout my song to try and replicate this disturbing feeling as well as adding unexpected chord movements to represent how quickly a dream can change to another dream. In short, I my generally dreams take place in familiar yet unknown places and I chose to represent this by making a song which feels disturbing yet comfortable and slightly unpredictable.