Pour un Chat Mort

When I was first discussing this work on the phone with Harpsichordist Jan Naragon, she suddenly commented that there was a dead cat on her harpsichord. Of course, the cat was not actually dead, but just enjoying a nice nap. Nevertheless, the resulting work became known as Pour un Chat Mort (For a Dead Cat). For inspiration I looked to the Harpsichord Suites of François Couperin. The first movement, Chaton sur let Touches (Kitten on the Keys) conjures up the randomess of a cat walking on the keys of the Harpsichord. In the 2nd movement, "La Chasse", our cat dreams of catching and playing with a mouse or a bird. The central movement is a Lacrimosa Breve, perhaps the shortest Lacrimosa ever written, after all, since cats have nine lives, and love to play in boxes, according to Schrödinger, our cat is both dead and alive at the same time! The 4th movement, Pavane pour une Chat Mort is a homage to Maurice Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte, though, since this is a work about a cat, this Pavane is in the style of a slow, sexy Viennese Waltz, with the bass line of a Tango (cats very rarely do what you expect!) After the final Passa-cat-lia, which starts as a relatively normal Passacaglia, but devolves into passagework based on the blues scale, and includes a reference to the guitar solo in Lynyrd Skynyrds "Freebird" (at the first run through, Jan's cat yelled out "Freebird"). I am inevitably asked if I actually like cats. For the answer I direct you to look within the work itself!