Stucky described his initial inspiration for the piece in the score program notes, writing, "Since the management of the orchestra suggested that the new piece have some connection with the Viennese theme of the Sommerfest concerts, I found myself daydreaming about the waltz, and about Viennese composers like Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, and Berg, all of whom treated the waltz seriously in their music."
He continued, "Dreamwaltzes is a public version of those daydreams: an orchestral fantasy of about fifteen minutes, based closely on fragments of real Viennese waltz music.
Here, after a gradually evolving, accelerating development, the orchestra seems just on the point of reentering fully the late nineteenth century in some grand, unrestrained waltz music—when suddenly the whole affair collapses, and we are back in our own time.
Reviewing the West Coast premiere by André Previn and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Martin Bernheimer of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Stucky stitched together some familiar hesitant phrases, a few instantly recognized fanfares, motivic fragments made quizzical by unfulfilled harmonic allusions.
"[4] Mark Kanny of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review similarly wrote, "It takes a familiar approach, seeing elements of old music through a modern lens.
Rockwell continued:In this case, Mr. Stucky has taken three Vienna-linked waltzes by Brahms and Richard Strauss (oddly, both of them German, not Austrian) and allowed them to color and occasionally peer through a veil of more contemporary harmonic texture.
The best bit came at the end, as Mr. Stucky played with Strauss's anticipatory fragments before the final, dreamlike duet in Der Rosenkavalier.