Cloven Dreams

Cloven Dreams was commissioned by Tessa Brinckman & the East/West Continuo of Portland, Oregon. Brinckman, who is of South African heritage, chose to commission a work for flute and string trio after visiting Helen Martins’ Owl House in the summer of 2002. This is one of the largest outsider artist’s sites in the world, and it is rife with archetypal symbolism, a topic of much importance in Jung’s psychological theories during the first half of the 20th century.

Cloven Dreams is based on African field recordings from the 1940’s, as well as the inspriation provided by photographs from This is My World which charts Martins’ life
in South Africa. It is a programmatic work in three sections, which takes the listener from the exterior Camel Yard to the interior of Owl House, followed by the transmutation of this material when the Little Devil Enters the Camel Yard in the third and final section of the piece. This third section represents the integration of the “inner” and “outer” aspects of Ms. Martins’ home and inner life. One is reminded of the magic realism found in South American literature, with the juxtaposition of such diverse musical material.

Reynolds will travel to South Africa in 2005, where the Sontonga String Quartet will perform a program of Reynolds’ chamber music at the University of Cape Town.