Getting back on form

Mentally in particular, I've enjoyed the sabbaticals into which I seem to have ambled, pretty much without premeditation.

Not surprisingly, when I've found myself ready to take the pencil back up, things have felt a bit rusty at first. A bit, but not entirely . . . the first of the clarinet duets felt like quite an effortless exhalation. The second has felt like a touch more effort . . . though honestly, I could not be sure that the difficulty is in fact external and logistical (mismo viejo) rather than internal and generative. Fact is, I've written several measures each day for the past three days on № 2, so I do not think it could be any matter of compositional dullness.

Where I wanted particularly to chop № 1 out speedily, and as a brief "ta-da!" introducing These Unlikely Events, I am well content to work at № 2 for even perhaps as long as a week . . . see how expansive the musical material wishes to make itself. I expect that one of the ancillary benefits of that will be, that some of the ideas I have swirling around for subsequent numbers in the suite, will assume a more definite hue . . . and seeds for yet more numbers will germinate.