Dementia   duration: 18’

 

Dementia is cruel. It comes in many forms. My experience of it led to the writing of this piece, where I tried to express some of the aspects of this devastating disease. Some of it is from personal experience, some from what I read and researched. In no way does it explicitly refer to the person in my experience of it. The music represents the various aspects, but overall the tragedy of dementia. The sorrow of it. The vastness of it, that engulfs the lives of those who struggle to cope with it as they care. In between, there are moments of beauty, that are readily found there as well: that person is still there; and there are warm moments and times that will hold you, as you experience there personality: still there. You will hear those moments in the music…often just fleeting, just as the unpredictability of the disease. Screaming and or raging can become the norm for hours, building, like an unstoppable tsunami, a tidal wave that you cannot escape. It is in here too. So are the desperate cries of the carers, screaming in their own minds, for they too, sometimes feel as though they are going mad. Some passages are full of hopelessness; the hopelessness of being beside this, and the deep, deep sorrow, for what it is taking; day by day, from the person you love. But they are still there, with the love and personality they ever had… those passages are in here. They are important passages.

All emotion is here. Please remember those with the disease, and their carers as you play or conduct this score.

 

All money from the sale of scores and royalties will be donated to Dementia UK.

 

 

SCORED FOR

2 flutes
Oboe
Horn in F
Strings

 

 

Prices:

A3 Score £30

A4 Score £30

Parts FREE

 

 

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Please note, this is an electronic sound file.

 

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