A chicken and Her Egg

While I was yet in hospital, I began mental work on two trios; their several stories are intertwined, and in my attempt to untwist them, let me call them Trio #1 and Trio #2.
Peter H. Bloom returned from Ensemble Aubade's tour of the southeast and regaled me with highly gratifying reports of how exceptionally enthusiastic was the audiences' reception of Oxygen Footprint.
When we first talked about the prospect of the Footprint, we left open the possibility of more than one piece.
So, when I learnt what a success the Ensemble had had with the first piece, I was determined to write a new companion piece.
My inner ear began playing around with a dancing, jazzy pentatonic figure bandied between the flute and viola: the first germ of Trio #1 (flute, viola and harp).

As reported in this blog post, when my friends and colleagues of The k a rl h e nn i ng Ensemble, including Peter, rallied 'round with their resolve to assemble a program to perform at King's Chapel in May, I knew I wanted to write a new piece for two flutes and horn; and I soon had an idea of repeated notes in the flutes at and around the interval of a third, and this was the inception of Trio #2, which I originally thought I might title Swiss Skis; however, both that musical idea, and the title would be transferred to Trio #1.

To have music ready to rehearse in April for a May program, I set to work on Trio #2 first, and I began serious work on it on March the first. At the time, I was listening to Triadic Memories nightly; thus, even though the character of my piece does not really resemble the piano piece, the musical unputs for my new trio were steeped in a Feldman stew. It will come as no surprise, then, that it was immediately apparent that the musical character of the flutes/horn trio did not at all suit the putative title (Swiss Skis)The piece is instead called Yesterday's Snow. And I finished it by the Ides of March.

And the further tale of Trio #1 must wait until tomorrow.

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