This work was commissioned by Douglas Cleveland, who is Assistant Professor of Organ at Northwestern University and 1994 winner of the American Guild of Organists’ National Young Artists’ Competition in Organ Playing (NYACOP). The piece was premiered in September of 2002 at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Douglas Cleveland had formed a duo with Frederick Hemke, Professor of Saxophone at Northwestern, and they have commissioned a number of works for their performances.

Elegy and Dances opens with a full-textured organ solo of lyrical nature in which the harmonic progressions gently pull the anchoring bass notes up chromatically. The saxophone enters with hypnotic, angular motives designed to have the effect of sighs “wedging” inward to ever-smaller intervals. The first dance is a strong, forceful piece with shifting accents and meters alternating between 7/8 and 6/8. The combination of a Bulgarian dance rhythm and an Hispanic mode creates a foot-stomping sort of drive in the work. The elegy returns as an interlude during which the saxophone takes over some of the material previously presented by the organ. The final dance transforms the first dance’s characteristic rhythms by introducing the juxtaposition of 7/8 and 4/4 meters. The primary thematic material of the first dance returns in the saxophone part in a thematic transformation. The entire work ends with the elegy theme expanded to enlarged, fortissimo chords for the organ and interspersed cadenza flourishes for the saxophone.