Piano Solo

Piano Solo

1989 Fall Piece (4’)

Chromatic harmonies and changing colours. A piece to mark the autumnal hues of that year as well as the fall of the Berlin Wall.

1997 Mono Lake I & II (5’)

Composed after a visit to the Sierra Nevada, California. This saline lake has a productive eco- system: many migratory birds come to feed on the brine shrimp and brine fly, the pupae of which have always been an important food source for the Kutzadika’a people. That day the sun shone across the strange tufa formations emerging from the still surface.

1997 San Francisco Sketches (8’)

1 The Church on Judah
2 Alcatraz

The first piece describes a long walk down towards the ocean one Sunday morning and overhearing the sounds from a gospel church. The second a kind of barcarolle for an island in the SF bay, sacred to the Indians long before it became an infamous prison island. This piece was originally composed for synthesizers and appears on Mark’s CD “Hollowed Ground”.

1998 Earthbow (5’)

Another piece from the same album. “The moderately bouncy African jive of this piece is as cheerful as Lockett gets. He shares with [Robert] Wyatt the knack of conjuring up a particular English moody atmosphere, like a tango that’s run out of petrol near Stockton-on-Tees…” Clive Bell – The Wire

1998/2012/2016 Ezra’s Waltz I, II & III (about 3’ each)

For our son Ezra, composed on his 0th, 14th, and 18th birthdays

1999 Ode to a darkened cheese-shaped room (5’)

An enduring memory of a hotel of faded grandeur in Toulouse. A strange wedge of a room with high ceiling, windows open onto the Place du Capitole below; the rising heat, the swallows, the street sounds, the late afternoon light fading to dusk.

2000 Neverness (5’)

2003 La Source Miraculeuse (8’)

A piece that plays with the acoustic resonance of a large church, composed for the basilica of Notre Dame de Marceille in Limoux on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. The miraculous spring nearby was believed to cure eyesight problems and bears the inscription MILLE MALI SPECIES VIRGO LEVAVIT AQUA (these waters blessed by the Virgin Mary will relieve a thousand illnesses of sight)

2004/2013 Megh/phone (25’)

Originally written for piano and live electronics for Le Son Miré, the annual festival of electroacoustic music in Fabrezan. The version piano solo uses the same Hindustani rainy season raga which drifts in and out of obscurity.

2005 Five Bagatelles for accordion (12')

2006 12 Velvet Suits (5’)

Piano solo version to my homage to Erik Satie, recorded on the CD “Hollowed Ground” with a great acoustic bass guitar solo played by Trevor Lines

2006 The Detachable Waltz (10’)

A simple waltz subjected to a cut-up technique inspired by the poet Jackson Mac Low – re-assembled in 6 different versions.

2005/2007 The Big Haiku (80’)

A slightly ironic title given the length of the work. 17 pieces written on the 17th day of 17 consecutive months, with the object that each is finished on the same day without revision. Between composition and improvisation, an abstract journal of living in the moment.

2011 What is this Cameron-Clegg Alliance? (7’)

A music student in Newcastle wrote a piece for me entitled “Who is this Thatcher, anyway?” in 1982. We have remained friends ever since. This was written for a concert at the Friends’ Meeting House in Brighton on for his 50th birthday.

2011/2012 Winter Leaves (90’)

The many small pieces in 19th century piano literature entitled feuille d’album, albumblatt, or album leaf were intended as gifts to friends, admirers or acquaintances, rather than being destined to a publisher. Winter Leaves cycle of 49 piano pieces, composed one every day over the months of December 2011 and January 2012, each one dedicated to an artist or musician friend.

2012 Objets révolutionnaires 1 – 3 (10’)

Cuve
Tonneau
Pressoir

The first three pieces in a projected series of 30, based on the French revolutionary calendar, a decimal system of dividing time, created and implemented during the French Revolution from 1793 to 1805 when it was abandoned. The months were divided into three “weeks” or “decades” of 10 days each, named after trees, flowers, fruits and flowers, but every 10th or “décadi” was named after an object or agricultural tool. The pieces are composed on the relevant day.

2013 Fecos (50’)

The folklorique carnival of Limoux, or Fécos, is accompanied every weekend for three months by band of brass players (with snare and bass drum) who play a repertoire of tunes whose diverse origins include operetta, popular songs, classical pieces and Occitan folk tunes. This cycle of virtuoso arrangements, or rather re-compositions, explores seventeen of these tunes.

2014 The 158th Book (2’)

Composed as an introduction to a broadcast reading of Kate A. Hardy’s short story by the same name.

2016 Arbor Low (12’)

Sometimes referred to as the 'Stonehenge of the Peak District', Arbor Low is a Neolithic henge monument atmospherically set amid high moorland. Aspects of the symmetry and geographical situation were used in the musical structure of the piece, which was composed for the 2016 Wirksworth Festival in Derbyshire.

2017 Waltz of the Tree Sprites (6’)

Written for the beginner ballet class of the Carcassonne Conservatoire and their end-of-year show.

2017 Mr Nivla’s Waltz in 4/4 time (6’)

An exercise in 4s against 3s originally composed for accordion, for an artist/film-maker friend Alvin Booth

Score available here

2018 The Eleven Stones of Ndut Lieng Krak (55’)

« Nous avons eu la bonne fortune au cours de notre mission chez les Mnong Gar de découvrir un ensemble de onze grandes lames en pierre taillée. Peu après leur arrivée au Musée de l’Homme, M. A. Schaeffer reconnut en dix d’entre elles des élements de lithophone...Ndut Lieng Krak se trouve en pays montagneux et couvert de forêts, habitat de ces nombreuses tribus proto-indochinoises » George Condominas : Chargé de Recherches à l’Office de la Recherche Scietifique outre-mer 1952

The eleven stones of the title refer to an archaeological discovery in 1952 by French ethnologist Georges Condominas who was on a government mission in central Vietnam. The villagers showed him a set of eleven long sculpted stones. It was confirmed that they were a prehistoric musical instrument. Each stone contains information in terms of the geological memories, floods, earthquakes, and accidents to the stone itself - bursting, hammering, burying, etc. the piano pieces are interspersed with electroacoustic interludes which explore different types of gamelan, Asian percussion, and texts in French and Vietnamese from the artists Christian Hadengue and Tien Lê Thua. This work represents a collaboration for the exhibition "The Infinity of the Mirror" at the French Institute in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2018.

2020-23 The Londonia Suite (20’)

Street Scene
The Parkplace
The Rag-and-bone Rag
Nettle ale at the Time and Tide
Parrot’s funeral
Audio book theme

An evocation of scenes from Kate Hardy’s novel “Londonia”, a dystopian vision of the capital city in 2073. First performed for the launch event in Spitalfields, along with the ambient “Londonia Soundscape”.

2020/21 Spring Flowers (30’)

Continuing the ‘feuille d’album’ idea of Winter Leaves, these pieces are dedicated to musician friends. The first Covid-19 lockdown was marked by an absence of cars and other human activity. Being much more aware of awakening Spring, birdsong and flowers coming into bloom, these pieces celebrate this strange passage of time.

Grape Hyacinth
Spotted Deadnettle
Spurge
Hoary Rock Rose
Bastard Balm
Early Spider Orchid
Dog-tooth Violet
Wild Garlic
Cowslip
Valerian
The Periwinkle Waltz
The Nodding Scabious
Bastard Toadflex
Forget-me-Not
Rambling Rector
Snake's Head Fritillary
Wisteria
Brakish Water Crowfoot

Score excerpt for Rambling Rector available here

Piano 4 Hands/2 Pianos

1982/2023 Sonata Errata– duet (10’)

1983 19 to the Dozen – duet (4’)

1983 Intermezzo – duet (6’)

1984 Barcarolle – 2 pianos (5’)

1984 Heavy-Set – 2 pianos (3’)

1985 Gershwin Arrangements - piano duet with voice (15’)

What is this thing called love?
It ain’t necessarily so
Someone to watch over me

1995 El Cubano da Ronda - duet (4’)

1996 Walking Tune, after Percy Grainger – 2 pianos (5’)

2006 Il Court, il Court, le Furet et d’autres chansons d’enfance – duet (10’)

Teaching pieces, reworking well-known French nursery rhymes for young students

Promenons-nous dans les bois
Excuse me, do you know how to plant cabbages?
Le bon Roi Dagobamba
A la Claire fontaine
Quand j’étais petite fille
Il était une bergère
Alouette
Se Canto
Il court,il court, le furet
(Au) clair de (la) lune

2013 Ladrang Balabak – 2 pianos 6 hands (8’)

An arrangement of a traditional Javanese gending, written in anticipation of a gamelan project at the Carcassonne Conservatoire 2013 - 2017.

2016 Mnong Gar – duet (10’)

The programme note from the 1st performance in Paris:

Quand je commence à faire mes études de gamelan je suis fasciné par les origines mysterieuses de cette musique et je me mis à faire des recherches sur les idiophones métalliques de l’Asie de sud-est (la musique du gamelan on entend le plus souvent à Bali est une création du Xxème siècle). Un jour je trouve par hasard un vieux disque vinyl de musique vietnamienne du “Mnong Gar”, un peuple proto-indochinois, enregistré par l’anthropologue Georges Condominas, qui s’installe dans un village de population Mnong Gar, au centre du Vietnam, c’est avec un désir d’immersion complète. Il entend dépasser une certaine ethnographie indochinoise, œuvre de missionnaires ou d’administrateurs à laquelle ont manqué l’expérience d’une intimité et les méthodes que réclame une démarche professionnelle. Pour lui, partager le quotidien des villageois est la condition nécessaire ; analyser le plus fidèlement possible la vie sociale dans ses multiples dimensions, à l’aide de techniques d’enquête éprouvées, devient l’objectif. Il s’agit de « participer à la vie d’un village pendant un an au moins, de façon à suivre le déroulement d’un cycle agraire en son entier ». Cette expérience est documentée dans ses deux livres : “Nous avons mangé la forêt” (1954) et “L’Exotique est quotidien” (1965) En écoutant ce disque j’étais étonné par la beauté de cette ancienne polyphonie de gongs plats, joués en cercle ou en procession.

Cette composition ne s’inspire pas directement de cette musique, sauf un peu dans ses complexités rhythmiques, mais c’est plutôt un hommage à Condominas, ce grand ethnologue français, anticolonialiste, qui a farouchement dénoncé le gouvernement des Etats-Unis devant une commission de l’ONU pour son rôle dans l’ethnocide des Mnong Gar pendant la guerre de Vietnam.

L’oeuvre est dédié au duo Sadhana : Cécile Chanu et Vanessa Sanfillipo.

Trios

2003 For Every record player there is a record it will not play (60’) for guitar, piano and broken vinyl record

A homage to Jean Sibelius, in particular to the thirty years of creative silence, from 1926 until his death on the 20th September 1957, during which the public were always anticipating another great masterpiece. There has been much speculation as to why he just stopped composing, but evidence suggests that he was tormented by some unarticulated struggle which seemed to prevent him connecting to his inner voice. The material for the 360 musical events derives from Sibelius’s last completed work, Tapiola Op. 112, a meditation on the forest-god of Finnish mythology, and the harmonies have been put through various mathematical permutations based around a tonal centre of B. This is the basic tonality of Tapiola and of its final chord, probably the last chord he ever wrote. This is where the record gets stuck, freezing this signing-off moment in an eternal present.

2018 The Boatman for flute, vibraphone and piano (25’)

After his famous sojourn described in “Walden”, Henry David Thoreau, a land surveyor by trade, became a technical consultant for the River Meadow Association, in a protracted legal dispute for dam removal, a “flowage controversy” pitting the local farmers against the industrialists. He lamented human interference with the natural world and the waterways in the Concord River Valley which fed into Walden Pond.

This piece is a kind of meditation on the waterways, the constant flow and transformation, always the same but never the same. It takes as a starting point the flute phrase which appears in the final bars of Charles Ives’ Piano Sonata no 2 “Concord, Mass.” In Essays Before a Sonata, Ives reflects on Thoreau's state of mind in his solitude "his meditations are interrupted only by the faint sound of the Concord bell, a melody imported into the wilderness...At a distance over the woods the sound acquiresa certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to the eyes by the azure tint it imparts. It is darker - the poet's flute is heard out over the pond, and Walden hears the swan song of that day, and faintly echoes." (pp68-69)

2019 Objets Révolutionnaires 7 - 10 for flute, cello and piano (15’)

Continuing the projected series of 30 based on the French revolutionary calendar, a decimal system of dividing time, created and implemented during the French Revolution from 1793 to 1805 when it was abandoned. The months were divided into three “weeks” or “decades” of 10 days each, named after trees, flowers, fruits and flowers, but every 10th or “décadi” was named after an object or agricultural tool. The pieces are composed on the relevant day.

7 Pioche
8 Hoyau
9 Pelle
10 Fléau

2019 Paris qui Dort - le thème d'amour for cello, double bass and piano (5')

2021 In my mind are all the tides for violin, trombone and piano (10')

A weird and dark vision from the novel "Piranesi" by Susanna Clark, an immense prison-like building whose basement contains a turbulent sea.

Mark Lockett