Lowell Dykstra

Solo (a selection)

Pyramus and Thisbe for solo guitar (2024)
The myth tells about a pair of ill-fated lovers. It was a forbidden love. Pyramus and Thisbe proved to be faithful lovers to each other until the very end when they took their life so that they could be together. 
Written for Izhar Elias
Duration: ca. 7′
Not published yet

Nocturnal brook for piano (2022)
Nocturnal brook is a more or less continuation of my little cantate, The wanderer. In other words, whereas the wanderer strolls through the world, the brook meanders through the countryside. Rather than the often use of sparkling arpeggios, this meandering has been musically worked out by means of swiftly shifting tonal suggestions of minor third intervals which I found much more interesting to explore. Nocturnal brook captures two images: that of a mysterious night and a brook.

duration: ca 4’30”
publisher: DONEMUS Amsterdam preview/order

Tunes for a lizard for oboe (2021)
It used to be Maurice Ravel’s habit to whistle tunes for lizards in his garden. Actually, these were no clearly defined tunes but randomly picked notes. I wrote these ‘loose ends’ that could possibly have sounded like these ‘ tunes ‘.
Who knows, some of these musical hunchess might even have found their way into some of his compositions, so I therefore put in motives, referring to some.
If the piece is played on a flute, a headjoint may serve very well.

duration: ca 3’40”
not published yet

Ballade – non sum qualis eram for guitar (2021)
duration: ca. 4 ‘
not published yet

The straw man for violin (2021)
This painting by Goya is one of the cartoons for the tapestries in Carlos IV´s office at El Escorial. The blanket-tossing of a doll is used here by Goya as a clear allegory of women´s domination of men. Instead of translating ‘El Pelele’ with ‘The straw manikin’, I chose for Robert Hughe’s ‘The straw man’. To me, the painting is suggesting a lot of movement and caprice. The last thirteen bars depict a scene which is not in the painting, namely my idea that after the game, the women had left the doll somewhere on the ground or they had just tossed it away, leaving it in a sad and forlorn state.

duration: 3’30”
also a version for viola
not published yet

El alma dormida – In Memoriam of Guido Topper – for guitar (2013)
duration: ca. 2’50”
not published yet

Sing me a song of Consolation for cello (2012
duration: ca. 4′
Première by René Berman in “Kasteel Ammersoyen”, 13 May, 2012
publisher: DONEMUS Amsterdam preview/order

From Tower to Thoor for carillon (2004)
commissioned by and dedicated to Frans Hagen with financial support from the ‘Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst’

I was in Ireland in 2002 to visit William Butler Yeats’ country.
To me it was a sort of pilgrimage. As was the case with his tower, which he had bought and lived in for a number of years. He called it Thoor Ballylee.
This short composition is an ode to this impressive tower. What better way then to do this from another tower.
Written at the request of Frans Haagen, carillonneur of the Tower in Kampen. (The Netherlands)
(the score is now on display in the adjacent visitors’ room)

duration: ca. 3′
Première by Frans Haagen in Kampen, 9 July 2002
publisher: DONEMUS Amsterdam preview/order

A thin place- Rann Romh Urnuigh – for cello solo and the player’s voice (2001)
The text comes from a collection of prayers which Alexander Carmichael in 1832 was given permission for by local people living in remote areas in Scotland, to write down. There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller. A thin place is where the veil, that separates heaven and earth, is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of something devine.

duration: ca. 5’30”
Publisher DONEMUS Amsterdam preview/order

Willowy for harpsichord
commissioned by the ‘Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst’

duration ca. 7′
dedicated to Annelie de Man
Publisher DONEMUS Amsterdam preview/order

Five moods – dedicated to Guido Topper for guitar (1985)
duration: ca. 6′
publisher: Broekmans & van Poppel – Amsterdam 1985 order

Sonata for guitar
duration: ca. 14′
publisher Ediciones Eudora – Madrid . (not available anymore)

Works