SAKURA cello quintet's core repertoire has included direct transcriptions of Renaissance madrigals in four and five voices

ever since they created the ensemble several years ago. My response to these cello-playing madrigalists is a new book of

madrigals, Carving an Alphabet, composed with the expressivity, virtuosity and hyper-extended range of SAKURA always

in mind. The emotional landscape (lovelorn, passionate, miserable, nature-loving, awestruck, etc.) of the late-16th /early-17th

century madrigal composers and their favorite poets is also reflected here. To help me inhabit the appropriate creative space

I adapted fragments of poetry from two of my own favorite poets, Michael Ondaatje and Czeslaw Milosz, which I use as titles

and scenarios for this collection of madrigals-without-voices. The 'title song,' for example, comes from Michael Ondaatje's

book of poems, Secular Love:

and with the solitude of the air

behind them

carved an alphabet

whose motive was perfect desire

Carving an Alphabet was commissioned for SAKURA by New Music USA for premiere at the 2020 Piatigorsky International

Cello Festival and was completed in summer 2019.

                                                                                                                                 - Donald Crockett

Performance note:

Carving an Alphabet is designed to be performed as a complete book of madrigals

in the order presented here; or, selections in any order can be chosen to fit the needs

of a given concert program.

I. Carving an Alphabet

II. A Flute from the Throat of a Loon

III. Somersaults (in Protospace)

IV. The Night and its Forces

V. Bells of the Sea

VI. Country of Warm Rains

VII. Solitude Is Not An Absolute

VIII. Painting the Variegated World

IX. By Sunrise or the Rising of the Moon

X. The Honey Gatherers

XI. Arcs of the Heart

XII. Carving an Alphabet II

String Quartet No. 4 Traveling Symphony, commissioned by Caramoor for the Argus Quartet, is in no small part a response to this quartet’s sense of adventure and expressive emotional range.  When the project came in I had been reading several recent end-of-civilization novels including The Dog Stars by Peter Heller and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.  These two books, while quite dark, are full of the resilience of the human spirit.  (In both, the agent of catastrophe is a flu pandemic rather than nuclear Armageddon, making an eventual rebirth of civilization seem possible, however difficult.) 

The quartet unfolds in a single movement of about eighteen minutes, loosely based on plot lines in both novels.  There is a Traveling Symphony in Station Eleven, an assortment of musicians and actors who travel the countryside for decades playing symphonies, jazz and orchestral arrangements of popular music alongside performances of Shakespeare plays, King Lear prominent among them.  This is, of course, highly reminiscent of medieval troupes traveling the countryside in plague-ridden times.  The instrumentation of the Symphony is ad hoc and varied – ‘third cello, second horn, sixth guitar...’ 

In this theatrical and narrative piece, I ask the quartet to do some singing as well as ‘stage whispering’ fragments from King Lear and bits of text derived from Station Eleven.  I imagine the musicians embodying the Traveling Symphony – orchestra, theatre company, itinerant news service, keepers of the flame of culture.  Starting near the beginning of the quartet you will at times hear text fragments interpreted by the instruments closely mimicking the cadence of spoken phrases.

The form of the piece, a collection of scenes, follows this arc:

(i) still, mournful music; (ii) skittery, nervous traveling music; (iii) still, mournful music with intense melodic fragments; (iv) the Traveling Symphony’s overture to a Shakespeare play (quasi-Elizabethan music accompanied by guitars); (v) ‘telling the news’ of catastrophe, led by the cello; (vi) skittery traveling music returns; (vii) a tombeau for the people of the world; (viii) the Traveling Symphony overture returns; (ix) lighting the power grid.

String Quartet No. 4 Traveling Symphony was commissioned by the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, on behalf of the Argus Quartet, for A String Quartet Library for the 21st Century. World Premiere: July 14, 2017 at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.

                                                                                                            - Donald Crockett

My String Quartet No. 3, Cortege, was commissioned by the Dilijan Chamber Music Series for the Lark Musical Society. It is – behind the notes and rhythms – a reflection on emperors and kings, their works, their passions, and the inevitable passage of time. Our particular king is Artashes (Artaxias I) who ruled Armenia about twenty-two hundred years ago (190 – 160 BC), founded the Armenian capital, Artashat, and abducted his beautiful bride Satenik from across the great Kur river. Satenik bore him six sons before eventually, as the story goes, running off with a descendant of a race of dragons. I was struck by a 19th century painting of the funeral of Artashes by Giuseppe Canella (1788-1847) with its grand and seemingly endless cortege, the wailing throng lining the road, the deceased king borne in state on a royal carriage, all led by regal horsemen and a colorful phalanx of musicians.

The music of this fourteen-minute quartet is divided into five short scenes played without pause:

i. Cortege – ii. Theft – iii. Build – iv. Cortege – v. Farewell

‘Cortege’ is processional music, both majestic and noisy, with a recurring sense of the whole scene disappearing, becoming a mirage. ‘Theft’ has ardent singing lines passed through the quartet from the first violin ultimately down to the cello. ‘Build’ is forthright and clangorous (think of building great works) with bravura cadenzas juxtaposed and overlapped in all instruments. Following a return of the cortege music, ‘Farewell’ is elegiac, tinged with sadness as the principals inevitably fade into silence.

The name ARTASHES is deeply embedded as a musical motto in both pitch and rhythm throughout the piece, presented starkly at the very beginning, only fading – and ultimately disappearing completely – at the very end. At the final double bar in score and parts there appears this quote from Shelley’s famous poem:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Donald Crockett

This Dance Sonata for clarinet in A (doubling bass clarinet) and piano is a version of my Dance Concerto composed in 2013.  Originally written for both soloist + eight instruments (commissioned by Frank M. Hudson and the 21st Century Consort) and soloist + wind ensemble (commissioned by a consortium of twenty-two collegiate wind ensembles), they all riff on the theme of the original version’s premiere at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., 'dancing the night away until dawn.’ The original Dance Concerto is scored for soloist and a miniature band of eight instruments without percussion.  In the version for wind ensemble, which I had in mind from the initial conception of the piece, the band is considerably enlarged to thirty-three musicians including four percussionists.  In this Dance Sonata, which I also had in mind from the beginning, the clarinetist plays the identical music as in the other versions, but the piano plays a ‘real’ part, not at all a piano reduction.  The clarinetist in Dance Sonata plays both clarinet and bass clarinet in this virtuosic, three - movement work.  All three movements are 'dance music,' as if the clarinetist were the leader of some sort of dance band duo on this or another planet, and they play fast music, slow music and music in between.  These are invented dances; the regulars at this particular late-night, cosmopolitan club are very, very good, but even newcomers can join in and dance until the sun comes up.    – Donald Crockett

This concerto for clarinet (doubling bass clarinet) and eight instruments, commissioned by Frank M. Hudson in honor of the teaching and performing career of Donald E. McGinnis, is a Dance Concerto riffing on the theme of its premiere at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 'dancing the night away until dawn.’  The soloist plays both clarinet and bass clarinet in this virtuosic, three - movement chamber concerto.  All three movements are 'dance music,' as if the soloist were the leader of some sort of dance band on this or another planet.  The eight other members of the band play flute (+ piccolo and alto flute), horn, trombone, piano, violin, viola, cello and bass, and they play fast music, slow music and music in between.  These are invented dances; the regulars at this particular late - night, cosmopolitan club are very, very good, but even newcomers can join in and dance until the sun comes up.  Dance Concerto, written mostly during the summer and fall of 2012, was completed in February 2013.  The world premiere, on April 20, 2013 in Washington, D.C., was given by the dedicatees: Paul Cigan, clarinetist, and the 21^st Century Consort, Christopher Kendall, artistic director.     - Donald Crockett 

En La Tierra, Concerto in One Movement for Guitar and Orchestra, is the third of four in a series of explorations for guitar which I have composed in the past fifteen years or so.  The Falcon’s Eye (1999-2000), a set of twelve preludes for guitar solo, and Winter Variations (2006), an extended fantasia in one movement, precede En La Tierra (2011).  Most recently, Fanfare Studies (2015) was commissioned as the set piece for the Guitar Foundation of America’s 2015 International Concert Artist Competition.  The Falcon’s Eye and Winter Variations are also recorded on Doberman-Yppan by Brian Head, the dedicatee of Winter Variations and the soloist for En La Tierra.  All four of these pieces explore my relationship to the classical guitar, an instrument I studied seriously as a teenager and played regularly through my twenties.  En La Tierra (“On Earth”), in a single movement of about fourteen minutes, is in several clearly delineated sections.  The syncopated repeated-note section which opens the work also closes it, and in between you will hear a lament or two, a gentle allegretto and a scherzo both playful and aggressive.  Throughout the piece the specific, subtle and varied colors of the guitar are juxtaposed with similar and contrasting colors in the small orchestra of wind sextet, two percussion, celesta and strings.  En La Tierra was completed in late-October, 2011, which meant at our initial rehearsals for the premiere the excellent Thornton Edge musicians were reading very wet ink.  An epigraph on the title page of the score is from Pablo Neruda’s wonderful book of poems, Residencia en la Tierra (“Residence on Earth”):  “Well now, what is it made of, that upsurge of doves that exists between night and time…”      - Donald Crockett

Night Scenes (2009) Donald Crockett

I.               Scatter the Barbarians

II.             The Blue Guitar

III.            Midnight Train

IV.            Night Hawks

            Night Scenes for piano trio is a look at the cinema in four vignettes.  The movement titles, Scatter the Barbarians, The Blue Guitar, Midnight Train and Night Hawks, are meant to evoke scenes from imaginary movies or very possibly scenes of the movie-goers themselves.  The titles are invented or found objects, not the least of which is the evocation of the famous Hopper painting.  One might say of Night Hawks that perhaps the subjects of the painting inhabit the late show in an old art-cinema house, or maybe the music underscores a scene in a movie about them.  The midnight train is evoked in an ostinato and the violin and cello sing ‘the song of the riders on the midnight train’ using fiddle-like open strings passionately.  The blue guitar accompanies sinuous lines first in the cello, then in the violin, before moving into a kind of Ivesian overlapping of chords.  Perhaps several guitarists showed up and it’s too dark or too late to play together.  Scattering the barbarians in this case requires intricate passagework and sudden noisy chords.  These are just suggestions, though, and I invite you to create your own scenes as the music unfolds.  Night Scenes was commissioned for the Claremont Trio by Laguna Beach Live! and completed in November 2009.    - Donald Crockett

Wet Ink for violin and piano was commissioned by COMPOSERS INC for its 25^th Anniversary Season and completed in 2008.  Of course the title is a play on Composers, Inc., but it also takes note of this intrepid organization’s articles of incorporation, a celebration of ink-not-yet-dry music, freshly made works launched each season for a quarter of a century and counting.  Wet Ink lasts just a bit under seven minutes and is cast in a back-for-another-year ritornello form.     - Donald Crockett

I composed Winter Variations (2006) as a complement to The Falcon’s Eye (1999-2000), a set of twelve relatively brief preludes for guitar. Winter Variations, by contrast, is cast in a single movement lasting about twenty minutes.  The inspiration for the piece has two layers: first, it is an extended response to one particular prelude in The Falcon’s Eye entitled Bells in Winter.  The bells are represented by a number of natural harmonics, and a rather lonely melodic idea is prominent.  In Winter Variations the actual bells are different – a set of three widely spaced chords which first appear in measure 48 – and the brief melody used as a theme is different as well. Still, the piece feels to me like an extended soliloquy on that prelude, and to a certain extent on the entire set of preludes in The Falcon’s Eye.  Acknowledgement of the second layer of inspiration is in the titles of both pieces.  There is a poem called Encounter in Czeslaw Milosz’s book of poems called Bells in Winter.  Both titles, of the prelude and the variations, pay homage to this book of poems.  The feel of the poem Encounter - its tone, mood, landscape, language – also affect both pieces, as well as an earlier work I composed for orchestra called Antiphonies.  Here is the poem:

Encounter by Czeslaw Milosz

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.

A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.

One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago.  Today neither of them is alive,

Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going

The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.

I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

Winter Variations was completed in the winter of 2006 and is dedicated to guitarist and composer Brian Head.

     - Donald Crockett 

            Fanfares & Laments, commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and its commissioning club, Sound Investment, was begun in May, 2004 and completed in January, 2005.  At several points during its composition I had the experience of sharing the work-in-progress with a sizable group of sound investors.  For me these sessions were very unique: fun, scary, exhilarating - you name it.  I would like to offer my gratitude to LACO and Sound Investment for the chance to participate in this adventure.

            Fanfares & Laments is a symphony in one movement for virtuoso orchestra lasting about twenty-five minutes.  It opens with declamatory, fanfare-like music in the higher strings, punctuated by chords in the rest of the orchestra.  An aggressive fast section follows which features syncopated music in the brass; thick, jabbing chords; and, later, overlapping descending scale passages in a trio of violins.  An extended lament for solo violin follows - a slow movement in this compressed symphonic form.  The next large section (the third movement) is a scherzo featuring piccolos, piano and mallet percussion, and later harmonics in the violins and violas, with two kinds of fanfare music in the brass.  After this is a small set of variations.  The theme, a lament, is first presented in a quartet of violas and cellos, passing to piano and mallet percussion before moving to the double reeds and then to the whole orchestra in a series of cascading chords.  The finale begins in a quick tempo, returning to music heard in the first ‘movement’ before ending with a recollection of the violin lament - now in solo bassoon - and fragments of distant fanfares in the brass, all supported by soft, sustained, gentle, elegiac chords in the strings. 

            On a personal level, Fanfares & Laments suggests an individual journey by ‘the hero with a thousand faces’ in these turbulent times.  

            - Donald Crockett

            ‘The Village:  Two Poems of David St. John,’ commissioned by and dedicated to the Hilliard Ensemble, was completed in Spring 2004.  David St. John is a wonderful Los Angeles-based poet who writes compelling poems about landscapes and human love.  The two poems I chose are from a set called ‘Nocturnes & Aubades.’  They create vivid scenes – by turns lighthearted and intense – and very musical glimpses into the emotions of lovers.  In the year before composing this piece I worked closely with the Hilliard Ensemble as the conductor in performances and an ECM recording of music by Stephen Hartke, and I came to know their unique sound very well.  It was a pleasure, then, to compose this piece with the voices of David, Stephen, Rogers and Gordon clearly in my mind’s ear.     - Donald Crockett

The Falcon’s Eye (1999-2000) began as a rediscovery after more than twenty years of my own guitar playing.  Though I play these pieces (in private) with varying degrees of success, I have enjoyed the process of learning them nearly as much as the process of composing them.  The titles are small fragments of poetry which evoked for me something essential about each of the preludes.  The poems from which the fragments come were created by Czeslaw Milosz, Michael Ondaatje, Theodore Roethke, Robinson Jeffers, Linda Gregg, Rolf Jacobsen, Wang Wei and Franz Wright.  In case you are wondering, I composed the music first and then searched among the forty or so fragments that I had collected for an especially resonant fit.  A number of my pieces get their titles that way, except I usually choose the title first and compose the music ‘to’ it instead of the other way around.  The preludes can of course be done as a complete set lasting about forty minutes, or one of many possible subsets of the guitarist’s own devising could be performed instead.     - Donald Crockett

Whistling in the Dark, completed in February 1999, is a single-movement work of about thirteen minutes duration which I wrote for the California EAR Unit, and it is an homage to their virtuosity and internal sense of time.  The piece is scored for flute, bass clarinet, two percussion, piano, violin and cello.  Several of the percussion instruments – tambourine and sistrum, maracas, clay flower pots, almglocken and log drum – help create a rather folk-like and decidedly west coast California sound.  There is boppy, cheerful piano music which begins Whistling in the Dark that is suddenly transformed into much more aggressive, dissonant stuff.  It is as if you were looking at a two-faced mask with a smile on one side and a grimace on the other.  The slow dance is tinged more with melancholy than romance, a lonely couple dancing at some tropical backwater bar at the end of the world.  There is fast music toward the end of the piece to which I imagined people dressed in Depression-era garb doing aerobics in hell.  The boppy music, however, reappears as if nothing had happened; it remains doggedly optimistic.  Yet there is something lurking just around the corner, just beneath the surface.  There we were at the tail-end of the millennium; weren’t many of us just whistling in the dark?     - Donald Crockett

            The score of mickey finn contains, by way of a brief explanation, the Webster’s definition of the title:  ‘mickey finn [slang], a drink of liquor to which a powerful narcotic or purgative has been added, given to an unsuspecting person.’  By extension, a mickey finn is a double-cross, a sucker punch, a sudden and involuntary change of plans.  This translates into music of mercurial shifts of character, sometimes stark juxtapositions, and a generally vernacular-based language suggesting both American popular music and a hint of folk music from my own ancestors (Scots-Irish).  After the opening sets up a kind of groove that is gradually filled-in, there are several shifts of mood:  a sudden, cadenza-like passage; a chorale consciously related to Bach which returns near the end; a section marked feroce.  ‘Mickey’ is also the nickname of the dedicatee of the piece, Michelle Makarski, and I couldn’t resist the punning title given Mickey’s mercurial spirit both as a person and a musician.  (Happily, she’s not a sucker punch.)  I composed the piece in 1996 at Mickey’s request, and the commission fee was dinner and margaritas at the Paradise Café in Santa Barbara.    - Donald Crockett 

I read a lot:  novels, poetry, short stories, books about music, letters, collected essays by interesting people, the newspapers.  I had for quite awhile been thinking about writing my own set of short stories, but with music instead of words.  Short Stories, which I composed for the Debussy Trio during May-August 1995, is the result.  I have used single words to set the stage for each story: ‘graceful’, ‘fleet’, ‘keening’, etc.  The content of the story – its plot, characters, setting, feel – are left for you to fill in, if you are so inclined.  When composing the music, I imagined a situation where listeners (they tended to be children in my imagination) would compare stories after hearing the music.  As it turns out, a children’s ballet theatre from North Carolina toured with a choreographed version of ‘Short Stories’ a few summers ago.  I was unable to attend, but I would be very interested to see what stories they told.

- Donald Crockett

Short Stories             (1995)

I.               Graceful

II.             Fleet

III.           Keening

IV.           Scurrying

V.             Melancholy

VI.           Scampering

VII.         Jubilant

‘to be sung on the water’ was written for Michelle Makarski and Ronald Copes and completed in January, 1988.  The title of the piece, which became increasingly insistent during its composition, refers to vocal works of the same name by Franz Schubert and Samuel Barber.  There are no musical references to these earlier pieces, but the sense of the title, of singing on the water, is present throughout.  The music unfolds in a series of stanzas, generally increasing in length, and separated by silence.  though mostly quiet and gentle with both instruments always muted, a more agitated section occurs toward the middle of the work.  Double stops and non-synchronous rhythms predominate (as water images), but the central section features a melody presented as an unaccompanied line.  The piece closes with a return to the shorter phrases of the opening.    

- Donald Crockett