Black Swan (after Brahms’s Intermezzo No. 2)

• Sheng composed this work in 2007 at the request of Gerard Schwarz, director of the Seattle Symphony.

“In 2007, at the request of Gerard Schwarz, I made an orchestral version of Intermezzo Op.118, No.2 for Piano by Johannes Brahms for Echoes—Classical Works Transformed, a recording Maestro Schwarz initiated with the Seattle Symphony as part of Hearmusic—the Sound of Starbucks project. And I titled it Black Swan.”

From Sheng’s program notes¹

1. “Prelude and Black Swan (2010),” BrightSheng.com, accessed January 29, 2020, http://www.brightsheng.com/works/orchestra/preludeandblackswan.html.