Simple Music and All

 Charcoal barcarolle

Ritual Entrance of the Flappers

Still my guitar gently tweets.

Jawbone banjo

“This Machine Kills Papier-Mâché-ists”

Do Sir Paul a favor: open the door and let ’em in.

Make a jazz habañera noise here!

Vibraslaps Along the Mohawk

A Canticle for the Ineducable.

Fandangoes With Mangoes

— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

The Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded: their operas last three or four days.
— Black Adder

The rough idea for Simple Music came to me during a summertime outdoor concert. I made a start on actual composing on 10 Sep. The most nearly direct seeds were: On the Henning Ensemble program we were then preparing, two pieces of mine in particular were busy and complex in at times challenging ways. While I completely own that music and I am entirely pleased with our performance, an artist wants to try his hand at different things, you know. I got three minutes of the Opus 205 done on the 10^th, and that three-minute incipit made a positive impression on one listener. Night before last, I watched the DVD of a King Crimson show, and although my piece bears scarce any resemblance, “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part II” gave me an apt idea and so, yesterday I composed out to the end, and the piece wanted to run ten minutes.

Separately, I had forgotten that Jacques Ibert scored Orson Welles’ Macbeth.