26 January 2016

Another Think Came

Inspired in part (and mysteriously) by a beautiful program played by the Boston Symphony on Saturday night, Sunday afternoon and evening I made my way to the end of the first movement of the Clarinet Sonata. I did not rush overmuch, but I did have a very slight nagging sensation that I might want to change the ending . . . the last two measures represented a substantial improvement on the first version, which does not survive even in a draught, but there was something which felt just a little rushed about the last gesture. And the whole movement felt to me so sure-footed, I should hate to stumble just at the end.

Yesterday morning (Monday), I felt better about the ending, perhaps 92.4% inclined to leave it as is (well, as was, as will be clear presently). At lunchtime, I read through the score, and an idea came to me for a slight change. (The ending was close enough, that even the improvement should not be over-engineered.) For the space or perhaps two hours, I even fancied I might try a third change, and if I felt roughly the same about all of them, that I might even encode in the score a performer's choice from among three possible endings.

But when I revised the ending late yesterday afternoon, the new ending sounds so perfectly right, that is that.

Oh, and on the bus ride home from the office, I made a start on Boulez est mort, which will start piano-only. For three whole minutes? Well, we shall see.

Tim Phillips wrote from Alabama last night, asking for an E-flat contra-alto part to substitute for the B-flat contrabass in Saltmarsh Stomp. There are only two notes which are too low for the contra-alto clarinet, and it does no serious hurt to the texture to cast those two notes an octave higher.

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