Ink barely dry

My blogging is not quite keeping pace with my musical activity. This page (practically all of it) was written Thursday morning; I snapped the picture on the train last night; and only posting this Saturday morning.

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. . . and in fact on that train last night (whose departure was not at midnight, and which did not leave for Georgia), I finished out the piece. It is a brief (four minutes) companion to the flute-clarinet duet Heedless Watermelon, written to fill out the April date at King’s Chapel.

Originally I had planned to do a clarinet/organ recital on that occasion, as it’s been a spell since my cl/org material has had an airing. But the recital’s timing is immediately after Easter, and the organist pleaded extenuating circumstances. He’s a good chap, and we’re not savages ’ere, so the cl/org program will enjoy a further respite.

Fresh from the triumph at the library, my thought directly turned to a fl/cl program . . . give the Heedless Watermelon another whirl, and I shouldn’t mind another lash at the Studies in Impermanence. That leaves about four minutes to fill out the half-hour’s program preferred at King’s Chapel — hence the new fl/cl duet, All the Birds in Mondrian’s Cage.

Severe economies of line, apparent restriction of activity (I think I want the whole piece played piano, for but one instance) . . . the title and a scheme for the music came to me at about the same instant.