Wanderings of the Mind While Attempting to Ruminate on a Painting of Dali by Alexander Elliott Miller

The title of the painting in question in my work, Wanderings of the Mind While Attempting to Ruminate on a Painting of Dali, is "Skull with its Lyric Appendage Leaning on a Night Table which should have the Exact Temperature of a Cardinal's Nest" (http://tinyurl.com/7ys9c58).

Salvador Dali's work depicts a giant skull leaning on a night table, while its jawbone and teeth extend outward and gradually transform into the keys of a grand piano, set against a vast desert landscape. I’m attracted to the bizarre, surrealistic qualities of this work: the creepy imagery of the skull crossed with the tongue-in-cheek nature of both the piano-appendage and the odd, excessively long title.

Only occasional passages of the composition attempt to "depict" this painting in music (you'll hear the skull-piano object represented by music migrating from the woodblocks to temple blocks to marimba to harp to piano). But more importantly, the piece is a series of orchestral "attempts" to ruminate on Dali's painting, and which then become distracted, lose focus and turn to completely new musical material as if day dreaming. For comparison, one might imagine the experience of reading a book which is not very interesting, starting to daydream while continuing to move your eyes across the page, and finally "snapping back" to the book.

Ultimately, Wanderings of the Mind While Attempting to Ruminate on a Painting of Dali is not really about Salvador Dali's "Skull with its Lyric Appendage Leaning on a Night Table which should have the Exact Temperature of a Cardinal's Nest" at all. It's about trying to look at a painting, when, perhaps, you'd really rather be looking out a window.

Recorded by the USC Symphony, Donald Crockett, conductor.