Closing in!

The fifth movement, After a reading of “The Mysterious Stranger,” of the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Op.136 is to be in three sections, slow-fast-slow.  Working on this movement has been a curious intersection of How I designed the movement, long ago with sudden, spontaneous inspiration.  There is nothing of paint-by-numbers here.

The opening slow section (too substantial to be labeled an introduction, I think) came to this world effortlessly, and required only minimal finishing once it had been set in fair draught.  Then, in an apparent nod to Beethoven, I found myself harking back, first, to the second movement (a passage which one sympathetic listener had told me, he would be happy to hear more of . . . we shall see if this change his tune);  and, second, to begin the fast section, I had the whimsical idea of importing a passage from the first movement (Another Think Coming) with the purpose of finding somewhere else to take it (in a way harmonious with the title, I should think).

Almost assuredly as a result of revisiting Plotting (y is the new x) this morning, I decided that the bulk of the fast section would be a kind of passacaglia, on a five-measure subject which emerges from the material borrowed from the first movement.

Contented with what I feel has been good work today, I rather think I may reach the end of the piece tomorrow.