For anybody who’s slept among dogs, you know the canine propensity for dreaming! For this work, I was inspired from imagining the hypothetical dreamscape of a dog, particular belonging to the one that follows: Tucker was a dog (half great Pyranese, half husky) who was a best friend and loveable goof. A gentle giant soul, he fell into a scrap with another dog which sent him to spend several nights at the vet. Having never been in a fight, nor having been in such a dire circumstance, found me musing on what could be happening in his unconscious mind. In this composition, I set out to evoke the blunt and raw emotiveness as well as the sublime innocence of Tucker–regardless of what the listener recognizes in this work, that is what I was thinking about while writing it.
I’ve always felt, too, that dogs are generally very musically sensitive creatures, I believe they are genuinely and emotionally moved by music: they howl plaintive choruses; their barks, growls, and whines carry their own culture of organized sounds; their tails and bodies dance to different drum; they are lulled by lullabies. Finally, a three-dog night refers to the tradition found in many cultures of how, when it’s too cold, the more dogs you sleep with the cozier you become– regardless of available legspace. This work was commissioned by my good friend, the violist Margaret Carey, and premiered alongside her piano collaborator Roger Admiral, for their album, Enigmatic Variations.
