On the shortest day of the year, a man makes his way to his old family home and kindles the ghosts of the past.
Music: Flook, 'Lalabee/Jig for Simon'; excerpts from Erland Cooper, Folded Landscapes (performed by Scottish Ensemble); Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau, 'Tabhair Dom do Lámh', Edmund Finnis, Elsewhere (featuring Daniel Pioro, violin)
Sound FX: freesound.org
'The light of madness, of piercing visions, illumined the nocturnal world...'
Music: Edmund Finnis, Elsewhere (featuring Daniel Pioro, violin); Gabriel Fauré, 'Après un rève' (sung by Sabine Devieilhe); Michael Gordon, Weather (I) (performed by Manchester Collective); John Barry, Eternal Echoes and The Beyondness of Things (performed by English Chamber Orchestra)
Sound FX: freesound.org
'I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him'.
Music: John Cage, Sonata XI, Works of Calder: II, Bacchanale, In the Name of the Holocaust, And the Earth Shall Bear Again, Three Easy Pieces: Round (all performed by Giancarlo Simonacci)
Sound FX: freesound.org
'The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes'.
Music: Andrew Rudin, Tragoedia; Donald Erb, Music for Instruments and Electronic Sounds; Frédéric Chopin, Étude Op. 10, No. 5 (performed by Hans Wurman); W.A. Mozart, 'Rondo: Allegro' from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (performed by Hans Wurman); Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vocalise (performed by Hans Wurman); Camille Saint-Saëns, 'Introduction' from Carnival of the Animals (performed by Gazdatronik); Richard Chartier, Interreference.4; a-ha, 'Soft Rains of April'
Sound FX: from freesound.org
'There is a description in a child's science book of the act of love that makes it all quite clear and helps when one begins to forget'.
Music: Ivor Slaney, 'Window Gazing'
Distracted moments of being.
Music: Gabriel Prokofiev and Peter Gregson, Float Dance (Subnaught Remix)
Sound FX: from freesound.org
'Dear Sir, I am writing to you to object to the word cremains, which was used by your representative when he met with my mother and me two days after my father's death'.
Music: Kevin MacLeod, Music for Funeral Home
A minor mystery, or a tiny tragedy.
Music: Christopher O'Hare, Novelty Hurry; Mayhew Lake, 'Minor Love Motif' and 'Major Love Motif' from Synchronizing Suite No. 1 (performed by The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra)
A dialogue between head and heart.
Music: J.S. Bach, 'Sarabande' from Cello Suite No. 5 (performed by Pieter Wispelwey)
'She changes this thing in the house to annoy the other...'
Music: Adolf Minot, Pizzicato Misterioso No. 30 (performed by The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra)
'The fact that his landlady appeared to be slightly off her rocker didn't worry Billy in the least'.
Music: Bernard Herrmann, from The Twilight Zone
Sound FX: from freesound.org
An evening goes awry for a husband and wife.
Music: The Ink Spots, 'I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire' & 'You're Breaking My Heart'; Bernard Herrmann, excerpts from Psycho and Vertigo
Sound FX: from freesound.org
A priest's death causes an upset for those who mourn him.
Music: David Maslanka, excerpts from Quintet No. 4 (performed by Musical Arts Woowind Quartet) and Quintet No. 3 (performed by Pentaèdre); W.A. Mozart, Ave Verum Corpus
Sound FX: from freesound.org
'With the fear of damnation in my soul I went in, and the confessional door closed of itself behind me. It was pitch-dark and I couldn't see priest or anything else. Then I really began to be frightened'.
Music: Cirque Plume, 'Mais l'ange', 'L'épouvantail', 'Le recalitron', & 'Diogenio'; extract from Igor Stravinsky, Petrushka (arranged and performed by Ryan Corbett and Djordje Gajic)
Sound FX: from freesound.org
'A vast mass of matter it was, bulky, heavy, rushing without warning out of the black mystery of the sky into the radiance of the sun'.
Music: Philip Glass, Symphony No. 2 (performed by Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra) & 'Truman Sleeps' (performed by GlassDuo)
Sound FX: from freesound.org
A man, lost in grief, finds solace in fiction.
Music: Excerpts from Folded Landscapes, by Erland Cooper (performed by Scottish Ensemble); 'Forever' and '21st March (Variation)' from Eight Winds by Sokratis Sinopoulos Quartet
Sound FX: from freesound.org
'I know always that I am an outsider, a stranger...' Music: Hildur Ingveldardóttir, BJ Nilsen, and Stilluppsteypa, 'How to Catch the Night Thought' and 'It's about the Size of a House'' (from Second Childhood); Jem Finer, Longplayer; SISU Percussion Ensemble and Rolf Wallin, Purge; Clannad, incidental music from Robin of Sherwood (series 3); Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kontakte (performed by Ensemble Musikfabrik); Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima; Michael Jackson, Thriller (short film) Sound FX: from freesound.org