“From a Sparrow Song” uses material from a song by a sparrow (Melospiza melodia) which the composer recorded a few years ago in Vancouver, Canada. The opening section of the piece (about 45 seconds) is closely based on a transcription of that song, lowered about two and a half octaves in pitch and slowed by a factor of about fifteen. The rest of the piece, which develops that material, has a form derived from the baroque-classical rounded binary and also includes sections derived from two components of the baroque suite – gigue and sarabande.
The melodic-harmonic language here, a non-serial twelve-tone one, is original with the composer. It uses three four-pitch sets at a time. Each of these is pitch-symmetric (see example), and together they include all twelve usual pitch classes. Example: {{Gb, Ab, Bb, C}, {C#, D, E, F}, {Eb, G, A, B}}. (Each of these three sets is pitch-symmetric about A and Eb.)