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.
"Mélisande," named after the leading female character of the celebrated play, Pélleas et Mélisande, by Nobel laureate Maurice Maeterlinck, commemorates both the author and the tragic role he created. This character is perhaps best known in context of Debussy's opera based on the play--one of the greatest masterpieces of French music literature.
