It took three-ish sessions to re-engrave the Petersburg Nocturne in Sibelius, and it looks much better, much truer to its appearance in MS., than did my earlier attempt in Finale (from which I actually had the temerity to try playing the piece in public, albeit a lunchtime recital at St Paul's).
Spring in Her Step required two-ish sessions, and the new look of the piece (harmonized with the Nocturne and other pieces I composed in that epoch) has me more pleased than ever with it musically. No, I'm not certain that I quite understand that, myself.
Yesterday evening, I began (and finished) the Sibelius edition of both The Bronze Girl's Spilt Milk and The Sleep-Pavane at the Foot of Frozen Niagara. They are both short, of course, and quiet, and spare; and only modest miniatures. But I have never other than liked them both, and if I ever felt that I ought to change even a single note, something would have to be wrong with me. For all their artistic modesty, they were the most important music for me to have written up to that time: music which is both completely true to my own character as a composer, and wrought with a professionalism and elegance which are not to be denied.
We have choir tonight, so it will be tomorrow that I can engrave the last remaining piece of the Op.11; in some ways, the piece from this set with the most interesting history.
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