Apres un reve: String Orchestra, Conductor Score

Thom Sharp's arrangement captures the intimate vocal beauty of Faure's original while giving your string section a genuinely expressive vehicle. The writing sits comfortably at Grade 3, with flowing part work that lets students hear how orchestral color and phrase shape carry the music forward without requiring advanced technical demands.

Quiet reverence and unrushed beauty characterize this arrangement. Faure's impressionistic harmonies float beneath soaring melodic gestures, creating an almost dreamlike quality that asks students to listen inward. The piece breathes with the unhurried grace of a vocal ballad translated to strings.

String orchestra conductors seeking repertoire that develops ensemble musicianship and student sensitivity to Romantic-era harmony and phrasing. This works equally well for advanced middle school orchestras or early high school groups looking for repertoire with emotional depth and manageable technical requirements.

• Shape long lines through breath and vibrato control rather than relying on dynamic markings; the soaring quality comes from a singing approach to phrasing across several measures.
• Balance the harmonic palette by having inner voices (violas and second violins) support rather than compete with the melodic line; these voices carry impressionistic color.
• Sustain consistent vibrato and intonation during lyrical passages, as any wavering will expose vulnerability in slower, exposed writing.
• Draw clear sectional transitions by using tempo and release precision; the piece glides between ideas, so clean endings signal the arrival of new material.

Program this as an opening work to establish an intimate or reflective concert mood, or pair it with other French Romantic repertoire. Its gentle expression also makes it an ideal encore or final piece on a concert featuring lighter fare elsewhere, offering audiences a moment of repose.

• Sustaining long phrases with consistent tone and vibrato
• Reading and balancing impressionistic harmonic progressions
• Executing seamless sectional transitions and phrase connections
• Responding to subtle dynamic and expressive direction
• Developing intonation awareness in sustained, exposed writing