While Asia was writing his Scherzo Sonata in 1987 for pianist Jonathan Shames, he began to realize that the music bristling to life under his fingers had orchestral implications, as well. That same year he transformed five of the sonata's movements into his Symphony No. 1, simplifying some of the original score's structure along the way. Even so, he was at a loss to translate the difficult rhythms of the fifth and sixth movements into something idiomatically orchestral. He returned to the problem in 1990, inspired by a commission from the American Composers Orchestra. The result was Black Light, premiered by the ACO the following year. Bernard Holland of The New York Times hailed this work as an example of "the new hedonism," a development in contemporary American music marked by "a sensuous approach to sound and a generous exploitation of instruments."

Black Light is typical of Asia's work at that point in his career, with chattering woodwinds, intricate lines, and a practice of building to sudden climaxes and quickly easing back with no loss of tension or momentum. Asia wrote, "Black Light is in two movements that are played without break. The first is slow and calm, distant and ethereal. It is characterized by simple, ruminative melodies presented over a gentle accompaniment. It seems metaphorically like the quiet time before daybreak. The second movement is in three sections. The first is highly energetic, fast, and brilliant. The second offers a brief respite, with a lyrical tune that runs throughout the section. The final section takes us back to the fast and energetic music of the opening of the movement. There is greater connection, however, between the movements than I have so far indicated. The gentle tune of the opening movement reappears a number of times in the second movement, always in widely spaced octaves, presented in skeletal fashion, as a gentle reminder of the movement's previous calm. If the first movement is the quiet before daybreak, then surely this second movement is suggestive of the fierceness of the appearance of the sun (particularly in the Southwest), in all its glory, at that first instant of daybreak."

The final page of the score is inscribed, "October 15, 1990/In Memoriam Leonard Bernstein."

© All Music Guide