Today in "I haven't Thought of That in a While"

The Risk:Reward Profile of the Rhythm
An irreparable parable
The spinster’s pinschers.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I think a lot of Bernstein—but not as much as he does. Lennie has no humor about his egomania. I do.

— Oscar Levant, from the first chapter (“Total Recoil”) of his autobiography, Memoirs of an Amnesiac

The first piece I wrote for orchestra was in fact a commission, from the Quincy Symphony just south of Boston: my Opus 46, The Wind, the Sky and the Wheeling Stars. The première was a little shaky, and I do not have a recording of the event. The honorarium was very modest (I almost wish I hadn't cashed the check so that I might have kept it for a souvenir.) I find that my feelings about the piece are rather mixed. In my place, Brahms or Varèse would burn the score. It's certainly less polished than my later work (I think much better of the Overture to White Nights, which is the next orchestral score I would compose.) and it is not completely in my own voice. Do I still hope for a decent performance by some other orchestra to convince me that it really is a decent piece, after all? Is it a weakness that I cannot actually dislike the piece? I'm not finding answers, but questions multiply. Mildly surprised to see that nine years ago, my thoughts on the piece were gentler.