Insomnia Endgame

 “Some guys do nothing but complain,” he sang, complaining....

— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

There are grounds for believing that the human brain is somewhat smaller than it was 25,000 years ago and I, personally, fear that the Gorilla brain is increasing in size and weight. But let’s not cross that bridge till we come to it. For the present we are certainly brainier than the Gorilla, and the Gorilla seems to know it. You never hear of a Gorilla attempting mental feats for which he is totally unfitted by physiological limitations, the way some other animals do. Thus the Gorilla seldom makes a complete and utter idiot of himself, as Marmosets do so frequently.
— Will Cuppy, How to Become Extinct

I made a start on the duet for bass clarinet and bassoon, Harmonious Insomnia on Monday the 17th. I planned on a five-minute piece, and on incorporating one of the Simple Preludes. The “adoption” of the first Simple Prelude into Insomnia was (could be) no mere copy-and-paste operation. For one thing, there are harmonic intervals in the piano original which defied simple copying onto two single-line instruments. Finding the musical solution was of course an artistic asset. The important thing is that the overall simplicity was incorporated most gratifyingly. And the alternation of the Common Time and quintuple meter provides (with corresponding simplicity) sufficient rhythmic variety. We also have the contrast between the “white-key” simplicity of the adapted Prelude and the mildly sinuous chromaticism of the new Insomnia material. All that was needed, then was the usual dynamics and rehearsal letters, and the piece was complete on Wednesday the 19th. And I arranged the piece for violin and viola with a friend in mind.

Then and Today

 Trousered Wilderness? Panted Desert

— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

The nonmusical inheritance from my father had been, with wise counsel of trusted friends, invested in War Bonds, a move more patriotic than prudent. In 1918 with the war lost, we had nothing except the modest salary of my aunt, a clerk in an insurance company, who shared what she made with us. Later on the impoverished Austrian Republic granted a small monthly payment to my mother, which terminated when she left for the United States.
Soon after the Armistice in November 1918 we got the first shipment of food parcels from the United States. We queued on a very cold afternoon for some hours in front of a beautiful baroque palais, eventually receiving a splendid basket of food, with A large tin of corned beef the outstanding item. Meat had been more than scarce and that same evening the four of us did away with the contents of the tin can. It was such an overdose after a long dearth that none of us ever could face corned beef again.
— Erich Leinsdorf, Cadenza: A Musical Life

Eight years ago today (and for those keeping track: yes, prior to my stroke) I had the great pleasure of attending the second performance, down Florida way, of my Opus 116, Plotting (y is the new x) for violin and harpsichord. A most thoroughly gratifying occasion. Today, eight years since, I am delighted to have completed my Opus 212: Harmonious Insomnia for bass clarinet and bassoon, composed for my friends Todd Brunel and Greta Rosen.

Oh, and a Couple of Arrangements

 A headline on YouTube:

“You’ve been rolling your yoga mat the wrong way.”

— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

One of the interesting things about Bond is, that he’s just as bad as they are ... the real sense of distaste for who he is, what he is, because he’s old enough to recognize himself.

— Timothy Dalton

Something I meant to add yesterday ... enlarging, as it were, on the Trifles theme is that one artistic response to Greta & Todd reading duets of mine was to arrange Three Things That Begin With ‘C,’ Op.65 for clarinet and bassoon, and All the Birds in Mondrian’s Cage, Op. 97 № 2 for bass clarinet and bassoon.

More Mere Trifles

 And two years ago today, in “I didn’t even see the irony, Officer, honest!”

Watch 1,000 Musicians Play Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)”

— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Now, in November 1967, numb with chronic fatigue, I discovered that the spirit of competition may be the needed philosophical foundation for a free-market economy, but for the individual human being the urge to be overly active is, at best, a delusion and at worst a psychological illness. Since I knew myself to be afflicted by it, this was now the time to overhaul my life. As I struggled with the decisions how to do this and that, As I sat up late at night rummaging in the recesses of my mind, I recalled scenes that were filed away but never forgotten.

There was the illness and the death of [Dimitri] Mitropoulos. After finishing one grueling eight-week stint with the New York Philharmonic, he had a heart attack and landed in hospital within two days of the final concert. Having little else to live for he returned too soon to the orchestra and to the Met, for the inevitable second attack and further hospitalization. As if on a suicidal mission he undertook in 1960 to prepare the Third Mahler Symphony with the orchestra of Milan’s La Scala and died during a rehearsal, Perhaps through shock from the proverbial chaotic conditions of Italy’s musical world.

There are always romantic tail spinners who will proclaim this to be an heroic end. To me it is a sorry finale for a distinguished and good man. Even the obituary in the New York Times mentioned, with more accuracy than delicacy, that all the unparalleled kindnesses to players did not obtain for Mitropoulos their best efforts. There is, alas, no relation between human empathy and musical good behavior.

— Erich Leinsdorf, Cadenza: A Musical Career

Well, am I composing again yet? Yes and no. Finding myself, on one hand, with the shades of a question mark hovering over the Ensemble, or at least over its calendar, and on the other a wish to write something, only not for the shelf, please, I took an inspirational cue from my friend Luke Ottevanger and decided to write brief easy piano pieces. Two, thus far.

When Greta & Mike presented the clarinet/bassoon version of Janky Juke Joint, our Todd immediately expressed interest in playing it. So this is not an absolute surprise. Still, I wasn’t expecting Friday’s message from Greta that she & Todd had got together Thursday and that they also read the bass clarinet/bassoon version of the Lamentatio. So, it is for Greta & Todd that I shall compose the Op. 212.

Bach, Beer and Henning

 Another alien in another movie who oversimplifies, and gets it wrong. “Everything you [humans] created is used to destroy.” Hello? One word: Music. Do a little homework before off-handedly condemning the race, hunh?
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

A person who wishes to stay in public life must edit what he says or he must allow others to tone down and rephrase opinions, ideas, and statements, lest a personal truth in unpalatable form make trouble. There arrives a moment in a man’s career — if it has not been wholly inconsequential — when he wants to say what he really feels and thinks. Autobiography is well suited to such a purpose if three principal pitfalls inherent in that genre are avoided. First there is the “Apologia Pro Vita Sua,” then “Get Even with the Bastards,” and finally “Mellow Memories of Overripe Age,” all of which I have aimed to avoid. I feel no need to apologize. If any bastard got the better of me I blamed myself and I have no further need for getting even. Mellow I am not and while some of my memories are bathed in a glow I believe that — in many respects — the Golden age is with us right now, at least for the professional who performs music. If one does not overestimate the significance of the small cabals, my profession is honest. The attempts at “corriger la fortune” lead either nowhere or not very far. Perhaps there is a difference between my definition of success and that of simpler minds to whom money and notoriety spell fulfillment. Ultimately each of us faces only the Self, whom we cannot cheat.
— Erich Leinsdorf, Cadenza: A Musical Career

My friend and colleague Aaron Larget-Caplan has selected the Henning Opus 203, Uneasy Sleep to be part of his second Bach & Beer event at the Lilypad in Cambridge next month.

Thoughts on the Contents of the Fritz Reiner Box

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet

Eating her curds and whey;

When along came a spider whose backside was wider,

And elbowed Miss Muffet away.

— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

“I’m loaded with options” — legend on an apron worn by Peter Falk at a barbecue in The In-Laws

Lawd, but there’s scarcely any Richard Strauss missing here. One notable omission from my standpoint is the Metamorphosen, but overall one gathers that Reiner considered Strauss the most significant composer in his lifetime. There is just the super-saturation of Beethoven and Brahms which one would expect. There are two recordings of the Schumann Piano Concerto, but no symphonies of either Schumann or Mendelssohn. Somehow, no Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. A mild smattering of Haydn and Mozart symphonies. If you asked me. I should probably say I prefer HIP to otherwise for Mozart. However, I just cannot argue with a recording that sounds this good. There are even two Mozart divertimenti (including of course Eine kleine Nachtmusik.) This was well before questions of historical practice arose, so on one hand this is some distance from the composer’s sonic experience. On t’other, one clearly cannot fault a conductor for the wish to present these works. French and Russian music perforce take a back seat, and the only Italian music is Respighi’s Pines and Fountains. Of nineteenth-century Russians, we find the usual suspects. From Reiner’s own century, Audience-friendly Rakhmaninov is represented both by the expected concertante works and Isle of the Dead. The only Stravinsky works are the non-threatening Chant du rossignol and the Divertimento (suite from Le baiser de la fée) the latter is paired with the landmark recording of Hovhaness Magic Mountain Symphony, which is both the first commercially available recording of that composer’s work and the only work by an American composer in the box (pace the expatriate Czech composer Jaromír Weinberger, whose Polka and Fugue from the opera, Švanda Dudák appears. The greatest curiosity in the box, perhaps, is a Concerto for Jazzband and Symphony Orchestra by Swiss composer Rolf Liebermann.

Summertime

To give you an idea of his character: when he popped the question, the enraged question popped right back.
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

I am without hope. I am a dispossessed soul tiptoeing in agony across the wasteland of my shattered dreams....
— a despondent guru in Rod Serling's Night Gallery. 

This week in “Nobody can tell me this is a Smart Speaker” ... I instructed the Echo device to pause; I asked the device what the track was; asked the device to resume playing; and promptly heard: I am not sure what to resume.

We had some excellent and highly productive Henning Ensemble rehearsals in July. We have not, however, succeeded in finding a date or dates on which to present a program. Furthermore, a misalignment of heavenly bodies has frustrated attempts to find musically productive rehearsal time in August. Merely reporting facts.

Before I understood the degree to which Project Concert was slouching towards Limbo, I adapted the Magnificat from the Op. 87 Evening Service in D (an event which was a particular musical success, I felt, albeit St Paul’s would give me the cold shoulder later) for our Quintet.

N.B. I am actually posting this on 5 August 2026.