"Play the passage as if you were encaging your right hand within the accompaniment of the left."

"Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine…

As the candles burn low he paces and writes,
Releasing purchased pigeons one by one
Into the golden Tuscan sunrise…"

"Scratching quill on crumpled paper,"

"Images of wing and frame and fabric fastened tightly."

"Leonardo steels himself, takes one last breath, and leaps…"

-From Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine

(Eric Whitacre; Charles Anthony Silvestri)

I am Leonardo.

I must learn how to fly.

Purchased pigeons.

Caged. Entrapped.

One by one; One by one they go... Released.

"As the midnight watchtower tolls,
Over rooftop, street and dome,
The triumph of a human being ascending
In the dreaming of a mortal man."

“Leonardo, Vieni á Volare! Leonardo, Sognare!”

Leonardo succeeds. But was it still only in a dream?

-KKZ