Dreams of Fin was commissioned by Austrian violinist Wolfgang David and premiered at the Künstlerklub in Frankfurt, Germany. It was later recorded by David and pianist David Gompper for Albany Records.
The work serves as a musical dialogue and an artistic extension of Gompper’s own composition, Finnegan’s Wake. Taking its conceptual cues from James Joyce’s famously complex, multi-layered literary masterpiece, Dreams of Fin explores the surreal, fluid, and fractured nature of a dream world.
Musically, Dangerfield exploits the full expressive capabilities of both instruments. Rather than acting as soloist and accompaniment, the violin and piano operate as equal partners in a highly dense, atmospheric texture. The piece drifts through shifting psychological landscapes, alternating between moments of intense, driving virtuosity and periods of fragile, suspended stillness. The result is a vivid sonic journey that captures the circular, hallucinatory logic of Joyce’s narrative universe.
