Goya’s Dog
(and other animals)

Goya’s Dog is a 14-minute, four-movement work; in each movement the composer responds to one of Francisco Goya’s prints and paintings of animals. In movement 1 (‘The Dream of Reason and the Imagination: owls, bats, a cat and a lynx’), Goya is asleep with his head on a table, around him is a cloud of owls and bats. Movement 2 is ‘The Duchess of Alba’s lapdog: one small white Bolognese’; the dog looks folorn, surly even, while the Duchess is taking a proud flamenco pose. Movement 3 ‘Goya’s Dog: the head of a dog’, describes the dog’s mournful and desperate expression, as it rises above what could be quicksand, or a wave. In movement 4 (‘A Bull Stands his Ground: a fighting bull’), a bull stares, unfazed, at the four men who threaten him with spears: two fighters are already dead at his feet.