Another Piece I Didn't Realize I Wanted to Write

Okay, he's been singing for 2-3 minutes, then pulls our leg by singing, “Mostly I’m silent,” and then emphasizes his non-silence by singing a bunch of la-la’s.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Everybody’s doing something, I heard it in a dream....

— Bob Dylan, “Too Much of Nothing”

Let me start by repeating and reaffirming how much I like Misapprehension, Op. 112, both in its original clarinet choir version and the 15 solo strings adaptation. Also, that while I completely understand why the piece was never performed by the group for whom I composed it (it was a poor match) I think the Universe is a ass for continuing to ignore the piece. That’s settled then. No wonder that when I recently saw a call for scores for clarinet choir, a kind of hope on behalf of the Op. 112 fluttered in the Henning breast. I’ve already written of how that crushed hope ultimately resulted in Crazy in a Bottle, Op. 194. Now, that very same call which elicited pieces for low clarinet choir also requested pieces for brass choir. I wasn’t particularly planning to do anything about that. However. In part of a dream I began working on a piece for brass choir. It is many years since last I wrote for brass. Long since, when I collaborated with the late Bill Goodwin, I wrote pieces for choir, brass and organ twice yearly. Later, in Danvers I was very gratified to revive the Sweetest Ancient Cradle Song, of which Pastor Larry Wimmer spoke with touching appreciation. To revert (so to say) to the present, the time was short, but did I want to try to chop out a short brass piece in two days? Well, it turned out that yes, I did, thank you very much. The musical consequence is one possible result when the composer asks himself, Well, why shouldn’t a fanfare open with a minor ninth? In some ways, after a false start (I had to rehabilitate a point of imitation quite severely) the piece wrote itself. "Is that even a thing?" This novel usage at first, well, at first I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. Soon I reminded myself that this reaction is perhaps something to note but not actionable. Language and usage change all the time, so get the hell over it. Out of the note I took in this case, though, has come a title which tickles me inordinately: Lord of the Things, Op. 195.

@karl-henning-1