From the Shadowland consists of six short piano pieces supplemented by the lengthier and more complex
Fountain of Prophecy and
Fairy Ring (published separately). All eight pieces, written between 1975 and 1990, convey a darkly mysterious and often delicately poignant mood. Ford has taken as his point of departure the programmatic character piece of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, forging from historical idioms a personal post-romantic style with an unmistakably Gallic (and intermittently Iberian) flavor.
"Phantom Gondolier" depicts the ghostly apparition of a Venetian boatman whose lilting song wafts almost imperceptibly over wave and mist.
