Five Years Ago Today

 Euphoria in Peoria?

— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

The trick is, not to get killed. That’s really the key to the benefit program.

— Peter Falk in The In-Laws

Remembering with great pleasure the commemorative launch of the Kerouac Centenary

Accumulating Inconsequentialities

 Seen on Twitter:
My husband purchased a world map and then gave me a dart and said, “Throw this and wherever it lands—that’s where I’m taking you when this pandemic ends.”
Turns out, we’re spending two weeks behind the fridge.
— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

If you need drugs to be a good writer, you are not a good writer.
— Rod Serling

I’ve now composed the three last (id est, numbers 8-10) of the Op. 214 Inconsequentialities for toy piano. My loose plan is one day. We shall see.

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (author of the tender text I set for When, has a new chapbook coming out soon, No One Has Time for Anything But Life. Some of my recreational listening (suggested by my friend Luke Ottevanger) has been Medieval and Renaissance choral music. It has been a while since I’ve composed for choir (no longer having one I work with) but having that sound in my ear, and knowing former Triad colleagues who have choirs they work with, the back of my musical mind has been angling towards setting JP’s title. Today we had an excellent Henning Ensemble rehearsal in which we heavily workshopped the Rahsaan Roland Kirk Fantasia. So I’ve just begun tinkering with this notion.

@karl-henning-1

First (Last) Inconsequentiality

 Seen on Threads:
Me, to my 8yo: “Did you eat that cookie after I clearly said not to??”
8yo: “Look, I am focused on the future...”
— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I’m goin’ back to New York City, I do believe I’ve had enough.
— Bob Dylan

Day before yesterday, I chopped out the first of the projected ten Inconsequentialities.

@karl-henning-1

Opus 211 Post Mortem

 Improper use may cause hazardous condition
— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I don’t knock my country for what it is — I knock it because I share the dream of so many of us as to what it can be.
— Rod Serling 1970

While listening to Louis Couperin, I learnt what I wanted to do for Simple Prelude № 6. Also, I have learnt that I am happy to leave the Opus 211 as a set of six.

I was unsure just what to write, or even if I wanted to write anything. My friend Luke obliquely inspired me to just noodle at the piano. Of course, I am not literally “at the piano.” I do not own one, and my left hand is not yet fit again for noodling. I decided to write them for my friend Carolyn Ray, without leave and certainly uninvited, and this was another reason to keep the pieces simple, for although she is of course a proper pianist, I should have no business writing an uninvited ambitious piece of music which would be an imposition of time and effort.

So there they are: six slight pieces.

I dreamt last night that I was talking to someone about a set of pieces I was proud to have written. this miasmic set seemed to mirror the Op. 211, only it was a set of ten pieces, all of which had actual titles. (The Simple Preludes have only tempo designations.)

So, I have decided to write a set of ten short pieces for toy piano, Ten Inconsequentialities.

Well-Begun Is Half Done

Postcards from Dreamland: I was explaining to someone the difference between Patrick McGoohan and Patrick Macnee. Also, my wife selected a cologne for me with a very nice scent and in a distinctive purple bottle. The name of the cologne was the peculiarly monarchic, and not-at-all-masculine ER XIII, and Macnee was its celebrity spokesman.

What’s cheese for the mouse is a snack for the rat!
— Philip Proctor as Hemlock Stones in The Tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra

Excellent rehearsal Monday (was that only yesterday?) of the Henning Ensemble. First run-through of the Magnificat, also of the expanded One for Ahmad. Refreshers of the Cape of Good Nope, Simple Music and the Rahsaan Roland Kirk Fantasia. Some tightening-up still needed but in very good shape a month before the concert date.

Preparation

I know it would have been a distraction from plot development, so I’m not proposing any change to the movie, but am I the only one to wonder, on seeing the self-driving cars in Minority Report, if they still run on gasoline?
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

The readiness is all.

— Hamlet

Sixteen years ago this past Friday: 18 Sep 2010 Just booked my flight to Rochester for the première of the Viola Sonata opus 102.

There have been non-musical activities enough that there has been no brooding, as such, but there is no denying that the months following the April King’s Chapel concert have shown me my limitations as a forecaster of what I might expect. That said, while the process of getting from A to B was mostly an experience of bewilderment, in terms of Henningmusick, at least, the program we are putting together for 28 October is just what I wished. I am not pleased that circumstances forced me to disappoint fellow composers who have furnished pieces whose performance I feel we have to delay, and I wish we might have found a second date on which to repeat the program, mais c'est la vie.

The most important facts, for which I have ample occasion to be grateful are firstly, that I enjoy the privilege of working with excellent colleagues who are unfailingly enormously supportive. And secondly, that the Woburn Public Library is so welcoming to our making music in their beautiful space.

First rehearsal tomorrow. I mean, not absolutely the first rehearsal, as we've read a couple og the pieces a vew months ago, but it’s the first of our freshly linked tranche of rehearsals now that we have a firm concert date.

Program for 28 October

One of the most poignant things about watching Independence Day is: the Towers yet stood.
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

I’m sorry, I did not create the Cosmos, I merely explain it.
— Mel Ferrer, in A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy

For one reason or another, uncertainty has hung over this projected concert for so long, that I devised no fewer than three possible programs. No matter: now that we are officially a quintet for the Library, the program will fulfill my two key wishes: a reprise of the Op. 197 Fantasia on a Theme by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and the première of Simple Music, the piece I specifically composed for this season. Given our Dan’s sabbatical, it was necessary (but not at all difficult) to modify the scoring.

Music, Simple and Otherwise

Karl Henning (1960) Magnificat a 4 (2006) Full Ensemble (3:30)
Frank Warren (1950) Three Notions of Love & Ruin, Op. 50 (2025) Alto Flute & Bassoon (4:00)
Henning, Simple Music, Op. 205a Full Ensemble (première) (10:00)
Dennis Báthory-Kitsz (1949) Just Another Love Song (2025) C Flute, Alto Flute & Bassoon (4:00)
Warren, Passacalyawhatever, Op. 116 (première) C Flute, Alto Flute & Bassoon (6:00)
Henning, One for Ahmad, Op. 208b C Flute, Full Ensemble (première) (4:00)
Henning Cape of Good Nope, Op. 206 Full Ensemble (première) (6:00)
Henning Fantasia on a Theme by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Op. 197a (2025) Full Ensemble (8:30)
Total Duration: 46:00

Peter H Bloom, C Flute, Alto Flute
Todd Brunel, Soprano Clarinet, Bass Clarinet
Carol Epple, C Flute
Greta Rosen, Bassoon
Dave Zox, Double-Bass