Lost Minds

Three nano requiems for the unseen

Introduction

These pieces drew from an early fascination with the capacity of various instruments to capture character — to, in a sense, draw faces.
I was five or so when I first discovered the magic of Oliver Wallace, the music of Disney shorts, and, a couple of years later, the imagery of Sibelius and Stravinsky through vinyl records I found on my parents’ record shelf and, to begin with, secretly listened to when home alone.
Magical — and, at times, tense — moments for a little kid.

Here, the faces of loneliness. Abandonment, disorientation, and dissolution — wrapped as lost tales.
Lost mystic, lost dreams.
Neither dark nor necessarily profound, but human — comic, tragic, quirky, and certainly serious.

Pretentious?
Yes, very deliberately so. These are tales.

Weird?
Well… close your eyes and see.

A Gnome Worn Down

For Cello Solo.
Originally composed 1989 and named Lamento. Revised 2021-2025.

Imagery

A small burlesque tale.
A forgotten servant – dwelling in the in-between spaces of a home that once teemed with life.
Now a lonely soul. Spirit still there, temper and all, but soon to depart on a puff of eternity.
Not entirely imagined.

Lost Fairy

For Flute Solo.
Originally composed 1988. Revised 2025.

Four miniature movements:

  1. Canzona
  2. Marcia
  3. Capriccio
  4. Elegy

 

Imagery

Another creature from the tales of a real yet unseen world. An Irrlicht failing in pursuit of her own back.
Every grand attempt to be something according to norm ends in nothing.
Years. Increasing madness.
Then fading.

A Small Kaleidoscope of Tales Past

For Vibraphone Solo.
Composed 1988.

Imagery

She sat there, gazing out the window, seemingly speaking to the whole universe before her.
At times giggling, at times with tears running down her cheeks.
Fragments of memory. An entire life retold in pieces: emotions, outbursts, remnants of songs once sung long ago.
No cognition remained. Her mind was like a sky half-shrouded with clouds, where stars still twinkled through the dark veils of a long-passed storm. Like shards of a magic mirror glimmering at the bottom of a murky pond. Her eyes—a small kaleidoscope of tales past.