Butterfly Dreams (Tavener)

Butterfly Dreams is a choral composition by John Tavener, structured in eight movements, with a total performance time of approximately 11 minutes. The movements are as follows:^[4]

The work is scored for a mixed SSSSAAATTTBBB choir. The texts are drawn from a diverse range of sources, attributed to various authors. The first and last movements are based on texts by the ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Tse; the second movement features a poem by an anonymous author referred to as "Kokku"; the third movement is set to a text by the Japanese haiku poet Yosa Buson; the fourth to a poem by Kobayashi Issa, another renowned Japanese haiku poet. The fifth movement is based on an anonymous poem.^[2][5]

The sixth movement is the longest and most complex in the cycle, featuring a poem by Czech poet Pavel Friedmann, written in 1942. Friedmann, who was murdered in the Holocaust, wrote the poem shortly before his death. It was later compiled by Jeanne Němcová under the title "The Butterfly" and published in the anthology I Never Saw Another Butterfly, which contains poems and drawings by children from the Theresienstadt concentration camp.^[2] The version of the poem used in this movement was translated by Dennis Silk.^[3] Finally, the seventh movement features a poem originally written in the Keres language, spoken by the Acoma Pueblo people, and translated by ethnologist Frances Densmore.^[2][5][3]

The following is a partial list of recordings of Butterfly Dreams:

• The world premiere recording of Butterfly Dreams was performed by Polyphony, conducted by Stephen Layton, recorded at the Temple Church, in London, England, on January 5, 2004. The recording was released that same year by Hyperion Records on CD.^[3]
• The Skylark Vocal Ensemble also recorded the piece with conductor Matthew Guard. The recording was released as a digital download album by Sono Luminus in January 2016.^[6]