Not the abbreviations we need, but the abbreviations we deserve... “Not a significant source of sat. fat, trans. fat, cholest., fiber, vit. D, calcium, iron [or] potas.”
I’m only sleeping.
— Jn Lennon
Once Upon a Time, not such a very long time ago, in the era of innocence when we thought that wearing masks in public was an exotic Japanese practice, when the k a rl h e nn i ng Ensemble was preparing for a concert which has since been canceled, I wrote two pieces whereof I failed to make note here in ye blog, Gentle Reader. I had forgotten until this instant that my origanal title for piece no. 1 was Shoes of Sugar. As it happened, though, as I was at last wrapping up my revisitation with The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (and also, with Stan Kenton’s “Two Moose in a Caboose” in mind—quite likely, The Firesign Theatre’s “Camel on the Lam,” as well) the quartet became Moose on the Loose, a happy-go-lucky five minutes and a half for C flute (doubling piccolo) alto flute, horn and violin. I finished this (Op.165) on or about 7 March.
For quartet no. 2 I started with two fundamental notions: (1) the timbral idea of having Peter switch from flute to saxophone (when in the company of a multi-instrumentalist, avail yourself of the variegated palette) so as to enjoy the combination of saxophone and our Pamela Marshall’s horn, and (2) the gentle abstraction of the Op.97 № 2, All the Birds in Mondrian’s Cage. As a result, and before I knew that Pam had composed a piece named Labyrinth, my six-minute Op. 166 for flute, alto sax, horn and violin became Pam’s Labyrinth. I probably completed this quartet the day after the Op. 165, as I worked on them concurrently.
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