John Casken

The title of this piece comes from 'Celtic Cross' by Norman MacCaig, a poem that brings to life the symbols of an earlier time, carved in stone, entwined and plaited in abstract forms. The idea of a c...

'Amethyst Deceiver' is a short piece inspired by the idea of a mysterious woodland setting in which strange things come to life. 'Amethyst deceivers' are tiny purple mushrooms, rarely seen, but when f...

These six short pieces might more readily be described as fantasies, each with its own sound-world but linked by shared material. The mood of each of these short movements is guided by an imaginary la...

Composed for Northern Sinfonia Chorus and Gavin Osborn.

John Casken's Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis was commissioned to mark the return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to the North East of England, where Casken lives. The book, dating from the 7th century, is on...

Commissioned by the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, this a cappella choral showpiece sets poems about the sea by Katrina Porteous.Voices gently rock and then tumble violently, mimicking the re...

In spite of having written many works including piano, before composing my new suite of pieces there were only two for solo piano: The Haunting Bough and Pleasure Ground. I decided to incorporate thes...

Sacrificium was commissioned by the St Albans International Organ Festival for what has become one of the most influential organ competitions in the world. It is a demanding 8 minute work that will ch...

This work's title comes from DM Thomas's dramatic poem on an imagined episode in the life of Cleopatra. Cleopatra offers any three men from her royal court a night of unbridled passion, in return for...

This work's title comes from DM Thomas's dramatic poem on an imagined episode in the life of Cleopatra. Cleopatra offers any three men from her royal court a night of unbridled passion, in return for...

The Greek word 'amarantos' means 'everlasting' or 'unfading', and the title was suggested by the amaranthine flowers in E.E.Cummings' sonnet 'this is the garden', where the flowers stand 'enraptured'...

Flöte, Englisch Horn, Klarinette, Horn, Harfe, Viola, Bass

The Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood was probably written in the 8th Century and is the earliest dream-vision poem in Old English. A fragment of the poem from the section that describes the cruc...

A string quartet written in the late twentieth century which acknowledges the classical four movement model may seem a quaintly old-fashioned approach, but I wanted to see if my own concerns for colou...