Sleeping Beauty

1. Once Upon a Time
2. Aurora’s Gifts
3. The Spinning Wheel
4. Faerie’s Dust
5. I Must Find my Princess
6. Celebration

“The opera, Ballet and orchestral literature is rich in musical recreations of classic fairy tales, from Cinderella of Rossini to Omphale’s Spinning Wheel of Saint-Saens to the Firebird of Stravinsky.  Yet, the solo piano literatureis strangely absent of musical suites and tone poems based on fairy tales.  There are the Fairy Tales of Medtner and pieces like Schumann’s Fable from the Fantasiestucke; but these titles are used generically to describe a type of piece rather than a musical story.  To be sure, at the very easy pedagogical level there are countless Red Riding Hood Suites, but in the advancing piano literature, particuarly in contemporary piano literature, composers seem to have avoided the fairy tale genre.  Perhaps fairy tales are considered passe, or only for the very young.  Thus, it is particuarly gratifying to know that the American composer Carol Comune has recently written a six movement piano suite based on the enchanting Sleeping Beauty tale and doubly gratifying that the work is imaginative and colorful.”

– Donald Waxman