This and That

She pressed her hands into an armful of winter coats on the store rack. The coats gave as she pressed in. “I'm feeling down,” she explained.

– Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

We would especially like to welcome all the representatives of Illinois's Law Enforcement community who have chosen to join us here in the Palace Hotel ballroom at this time.

— Dan Aykroyd, in The Blues Brothers

I gave my brain an extended break after completing the Op. 172. Indeed, I did no composing as such at all until yesterday.

I did a little adapting/arranging for my church choir (we are back on weekly duty. Sometimes I comb through the filing cabinets, and I'll find an SATB which I think would be a good musical fit, save for the fact that we cannot do four-part music, which very likely (at this point) is part of a bygone musical past at the church. So I pulled two octavos to the end of arranging them so that our SAB choir can manage them. We started rehearsing one of these last week, and I have not yet finished the second (an arrangement of Christ the Apple Tree) I knew this week that I was not yet going to have the Apple Tree ready for tonight's rehearsal. Yesterday I got to work on a new Alleluia for the choir, suitable both for before Advent, and then for use at Christmastide.

I kept in mind that I have in the past composed a piece, with the idea that it should be easy enough to put together in short order, and yet, as I pursue the composerly aims of the piece, it becomes music which it is neither practical nor fair to expect my dear choristers to own in so short a time. So, while I did in fact finish the Alleluia in E-flat, Op. 174 last night, and we will begin rehearsing it tonight, I have also remembered a short piece which we know well and which therefore we can warm back up easily for this Sunday.

Chances are that the Symphony № 3 will thus be Op. 175.

Also on the theme of a dearth of tenors, we of Triad have determined that we must reconsider our upcoming program, and a further decision was to bump the concert from November to January (when hopefully we can have an actual audience in the space.) The good news is that we agree that When will work with our present personnel, so now the question is what are the dates in January? ... so that we make sure flutist Peter Bloom is available.

More good news is that the lunchtime concerts have resumed at King's Chapel, and I have reached out to The Band to pin down (or up) a date. I already have pieces for that program, Pam's Labyrinth and Moose on the Loose.