Three Tibetan Fantasias

Three Tibetan Fantasies by David Loeb
For Solo Piccolo

Tibetan music frequently seems rather unpredicable. As with many other aspects of Tibetan culture, Indian and Chinese influences often alternate or interact in ways that defy either historical or analytical explanations. Although its melodies seem simplistic, they often include surprising complexities which we may not recognize at first.

The first movement should sound gently, open, and free, as a solitary herder might play, alone on a beautiful day on a highland plain. The second movement should suggest the clarity and crispness of a moonlit night. The third movement derives from a minstrel song which has haunted me over since I first heard it, nearly forty years ago. -David Loeb