Composed for Ishikawa Prefectural HS Select Wind Orchestra at the "La Folle Journee Kanazawa 'Day of Enthusiasm' Music Festival 2011" held in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture in the spring of 2011.
The theme of La Folle Journee Kanazawa was "Schubert in Vienna”, featuring a variety of his works. The select wind orchestra also had to include a piece related to Schubert. As Schubert did not leave an original work for wind orchestra I composed a new piece based on his music.
I wrote "Fantasma Lunare" on the motif of the piano sonata "Moonlight" in honor of Beethoven, the theme composer of La Folle Journee Kanazawa 2009.
As the title "A Night Music for Erlking" and the subtitle “A Fantasy for Symphonic Band on Songs of Franz Schubert" suggest, this work is based on the famous song "Erlkonig".
Needless to say, there is a considerable distance between the style of Schubert's music and the expression of the modern wind ensemble. Instead of an arrangement of the song, I tried to recreate Goethe’s world of terror and illusion based on a story that a little boy with fever sees an illusion of the Erlkonig, who lures him to the world of death as he gallops along on his horse with his father, and finally dies. Also, I aimed to create a sound different from his music even though based upon it.
As a composer, I am interested in the "multilayered composition of time and space" that occurs when different pieces of music are played simultaneously or when one piece of music is suddenly interrupted by another.
In addition to some of the famous piano accompaniment and melodies from "Erlkonig", the piece also includes "Serenade," "Wild Roses," "Ave Maria" and others to dazzle the audience.
This score was revised after the first premier and was performed by the Kanazawa Municipal Technical High School Wind Orchestra in November of the same year.
