IT HAPPENS LIKE THIS
(2006)
for cello and spoken voice
or violin, viola, and spoken voice (2010)

It Happens Like This sets the recitation of a poem by James Tate against an adaptation of a traditional Persian chaharmezrab melody and dance rhythm. Perhaps the cyclical embroiderings of the chaharmezrab echo the successive embroiderings of the narrator’s tale of the goat. It Happens Like This was commissioned by Mary Sharp Cronson and Works and Process, Inc. for a celebration of James Tate at the Guggenheim Museum. Many thanks to Greg Hesselink for help and advice with the cello notation, and Mary Rowell for ideas and advice for the violin/viola version. It Happens Like This is July 6th in A Book of Days. The piece was written while in residence at the Civitella Ranieri and is dedicated with affection to Diego Mencaroni, who once loved a goat.

click to listen to a recording of the duo version with violinist Mary Rowell:

It Happens Like This score: violin/viola version

It Happens Like This parts: violin/viola version

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It Happens Like This: solo cello version

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You can also listen to the traditional chaharmezrab on which the piece is based.