La Fine d’una Lunga Giornata [1987]

The Broken Ear, part III

I wrote La Fine d’una Lunga Giornata in 1987 for Orkest de Volharding.
The work is based on several fragments from the Dies Irae of the Requiem Canticles by Igor Stravinsky and the Fugue in B-flat minor from The Well-Tempered Clavier I by J.S. Bach.


The title refers to Rockaby by Samuel Beckett, in which an old woman in a rocking chair listens to a recording of her own voice, which repeatedly says the following phrase: “close of a long day.”

• Orkest de Volharding conducted by Jurjen Hempel; recording by Bert van der Wolf.