This work is an evocative description of a jotting in Coleridge's notebook during the period when he was working on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner '…The Sea was then very much tossed, and the Wind carrying off the Tops of the Waves made a kind of Rain, in which the Rays of the Sun painted the Colours of a Rainbow'.

“Sun Paints Rainbows On the Vast Waves” is scored for:

pic, 2fl, 2ob, ca, ecl, 3cl, acl, 2bcl, bn, 2asax, tsax, bsax,4hn, 3crn, 3tpt, 2trb, btrb, tuba, euph, timp, 4perc.