John D. McDonald

Piano

Composer's Note:

Q: "Hi Mom! What are you doing?"
A: "Sitting in the plaid chair."
When I call my elderly mother Margi each evening, the plaid chair is generally her center of operations. From this vantage-point, she spends much of her time taking in the world and gazing out at it"”or conversing, daydreaming, listening to music, readying for sleep. What does she think about?
This piece's tender, enchanted, delicately playful phrases attempt possible musical answers to this question. I "premiered' it for her over the phone one evening. At that time, it was simply called In The Plaid Chair; she added Reverie. That performance initiated a new habit of finding short pieces to play for her most nights. On a recent visit to her in Ohio I was able to play the Reverie for her face to face at the piano in the common room where she lives, and informed her of pianist Thomas Stumpf's intention to perform it, fitting it in with a Brahms waltz. Even though the short near-Brahms quotation toward the end (marked "cradle song memory" in the score) was lifted from Wiegenlied (the ubiquitous "Brahms Lullaby," Op. 49, No. 4), it so happens that the melodic and rhythmic shape also closely resembles the motive of the Waltz Op. 39, No. 15.