Catching Fireflies
Daniel Burwasser
About this work:
Catching Fireflies is an ode to the tender memories and joys of childhood. The thematic material and structure of the work reflects the immediacy and innocent fascination of a time when everything is new and exciting, and something as simple as the flashing of a firefly can capture the imagination.
Catching Fireflies was originally composed as a chamber piece in 1988. It was later revised and orchestrated in 1997 for a recording by the Seattle Symphony under the direction of Gerard Schwarz.
Daniel Burwasser
New York City, 1998
REVIEWS
"Really, really big music... ..briskly jubilant. A pawky menagerie of Baroque, minimalism, film music argot, and Mozart at his cutsiest -- really."
--New Music Box, Issue 54 - Vol. 5, No. 6, October 2003
"highly communicative... Though Catching Fireflies is generally an upbeat piece distinguished by some very resourceful percussion -writing, it is its quieterlyrical sections that stick in the mind leaving one with a pang of longing for a time and a world that, for most of us, exists only in memory."
--Fanfare, September/October 2004
"In the work's episodes, it is not difficult to picture children alternately scampering and pausing to recuperate."
--American Record Guide, September/October 2004
Year composed: 1997
Duration: 00:08:30
Ensemble type: Orchestra
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: 3(1d Piccolo).3(1d English Horn).3(1d Bass Clarinet).2+ContraBassoon: 4.3.3.1: Timpani.Percussion(4).Harp: Strings