Dialogues and Entertainments

Dialogues and Entertainments, composed in 1980 ?on commission of the University of Michigan Wind Ensemble and respectfully dedicated to that superlative group and its excellent director, Mr. H. Robert Reynolds,? offers a stylistic collage very much in keeping with Mr. Kraft?s concerns. Instrumental color is of paramount importance, and toward this end, the composer has included parts for handbell choir and groups of antique cymbals bowed by performers stationed in the audience. The first movement acts a something of a prelude built in part around the names (in Morse code) of various members of the University of Michigan?s music faculty?H. Robert Reynolds, Charles Owen, William Albright, Leslie Bassett, William Bolcom, Ross Lee Finney, Samuel Mayes, and Abe Torchinsky. The second movement reflects Kraft?s experience of conducting members of the Los angeles Philharmonic brass section in antiphonal music at Venice?s San Marco Cathedral. Overlaid upon a web of woodwind and percussion sound are various quotations of music by Gabrieli, Hassler, and other composers of the late Renaissance. The final movement strikes a more serious tone, with the introduction of a soprano soloist singing a text by the Composer himself, added to Robert Frost?s ?Window Tree?: