Sundowning

for high voice and piano (2025)

‘Sundowning’ is a state of confusion that occurs in the late afternoon and early evening in people with dementia. Last Winter, my dad’s dementia progressed suddenly quite quickly in the lead up to Christmas, and I wondered whether it was partly to do with the days getting shorter and darker, with sundowning. I started thinking about this mysterious link between the weather outside and my dad’s brain, how the closer to evening it got - the less natural light - the more strange, confused and dreamlike conversations with him became.

In this piece, fragments of George’s dialogue from It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) are set to music and repeat and rotate in different combinations. I’m interested in how repetition can be a sign of confusion - repeating things to clarify, repeating to help remember - but also a source of comfort, reliving a happy memory, rewatching an old film, replaying a song you love over and over.

Text & context from the film

Oh, Mother, Mother, please help me. Something terrible's happened to me. I don't know what it is. Something's happened to everybody. Please let me come in. Keep me here until I get over it.

Now shut up! Cut it out! You're... you're... you're crazy! That's what I think... you're screwy, and you're driving me crazy, too! I'm seeing things.

What's the matter with everybody? Janie, go on. I told you to practice. Now, go on, play!

Hallelujah! Mary! Let me touch you! Oh, you're real!

Oh, brother. I wonder what Martini put in those drinks?

I want to live again. I want to live again. Please, God, let me live again.

Now wait a minute, here. Wait a minute here. This is some sort of a funny dream I'm having here. So long, mister, I'm going home.

Dear Father in Heaven, I'm not a praying man, but if you're up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I'm at the end of my rope. Show me the way.

Commissioned by Rebecca Lea for The New Winter Songbook, with Caroline Jaya-Ratnam (piano). Released on Convivium Records in November 2025 and published with Hal Leonard.