if a gifted young man ...

On August 23rd we commemorate the quiet roll-out of a radical peacenik religious sect: the Calm-ish.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Always look on the bright side of death, just before you draw your terminal breath....

— Eric Idle

If something is peculiar, is it necessarily of interest? I suppose not.

Divers applications of some elements traditional to Jazz. Listening

to some Copland today. Life would be less interesting, I think, if I

lived a sheltered intellectual life of feeling that I was somehow,

miraculously, never mistaken. It’s almost 40 years since I was

graduated with a baccalaureate, and I still check my work. I smile

at remembering Walter Damrosch saying of Copland’s Organ

Symphony: “if a gifted young man can write a symphony like that

at age twenty-three, within five years he will be ready to commit

murder.” You wouldn’t think this a big deal, but I’ve found a brand

of tea whose cardboard box it is easy—nay, practically effortless—to undo so that it is simply flat. Five years

ago I gave a pre-concert lecture to an audience consisting mostly of

retirees, basically so that they would not flip out over my music,

which was going to be completely unfamiliar to them. The lecture,

no less than the presentation and reception of the piece, was a

success. The idea of setting myself an obligation to commit words to

what I shall out of convenience call “paper” strikes me as a little

peculiar. Not absolutely peculiar, not peculiar for everyone , just for

me. I never knew that Copland scored a version of the symphony

sans orgue. Checking my work often results in learning newer and

better. Also listening to Boris Pasternak playing Copland’s Piano

Fantasy. It’s been too long. Funny to think that this was one of the

first Naxos CDs I ever bought, at the Borders which used to be on

Washington Street in Boston. I shall hope it isn’t somehow elitist

to find something peculiar only for myself. After all, I’m perfectly

happy that it be peculiar for anyone else, too. I didn’t always know

that Damrosch was joking in order to blunt the ire of the bluehairs

at the shock of some new music. Such successes are still quite rare

for me. I do not think that rarity is any fault in the music.

1. Jack Gallagher

2. Paul Schwartz

3. Judith Shatin

4. Walter Ross

5. Charles Wuorinen

6. Louis Andriessen

Of these six esteemed composers with whom I had the rich and arguably undeserved privilege to study, the number of music professionals who taught me that the craft and practice of composition included the dodge of having someone else do the work for you was precisely Zero. Osbert Foxglove [not his real name] is beneath contempt. One of my modest wishes is never to be too old to learn. Copland actually designated the piece, Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. Saint-Saëns, Symphonie avec orgue.