Just when I did not quite mean to

[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition, nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends. His only competition was with himself.
— Françoise Gilot

For reasons which I have shared on this blog before—principally, because I desire to finish White Nights first—I am not, not going to set to actual work on it.  Yet.

Nor let me mislead you, Gentle Reader, into taking this in any way as a lament, in even the least degree.  Because my Muse is there, assuring me that there is work to be done;  and this is the unalloyed Good Thing.

Directly after I have my choir and handbell ringers settled with Christmas concert material, and when I shall at last have wrapped up the ballet, I find that I already have a plan for the Symphony № 2.

• The first movement to be a Prelude for the brass
• The second movement to be the Sonata-Allegro (of some sort or other)
• The third movement to be a Scherzo for the strings
• The fourth movement to an Adagio
• The fifth movement to be an Intermezzo for the woodwind
• And a dashing final, sixth movement

My feeling at present is to aim technically, again, at “a good community orchestra”;   to score it as I did the first, only with the addition of harp (and, I expect, with a different, specific percussion complement);  and for the whole to run (say) 35 minutes.

I do, in fact, have a specific idea for the opening movement.  Whether I wind up using it or not, I should scribble it down for future reference.  But that memorandum aside, I am not working on this Symphony.  Yet.