I titled these pieces "Dittie" because they are far simpler (and shorter) than most the music I compose. I like writing for string quartets and orchestras - large scale pieces that may take 6 months or even several years to finish. Here I'm trying to capture my brother's moods as a child.
Paul, my younger brother by three years and two months, was enormously bright, but my parents, already concerned about my "bookish" tendencies, decided they wanted Paul to be "more a normal boy" than me. I think they came to regret this later, when unequipped by the skills gained in study to understand himself or to cope with the loneliness that comes with difference, with brilliance, he became enormously self destructive. Rural America is a hellish environment, unaccepting of difference, of change, of any motivation wider than narrow self-interest. No wonder that it is a home today to both endemic racism and Trumpism. I escaped by leaving public school several years early, going off to Toronto to study at a conservatory. My brother remained.
He died just a few weeks after his 18th birthday, when his already long struggle with alcohol and drugs culminated in a single car accident on a lonely country road. His best friend was in the car, and walked away with minor injuries. Paul died five days later of internal injuries, spending those last days a total quadriplegic, unable to move a muscle from neck downward.
The images I hope are conveyed in the music are not of Paul's suffering, nor his troubles with booze, drugs or violence, but of Paul as he was going off to kindergarten - a proud march here, a silly song there. Listen and please enjoy.
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