Satori in Woburn

Today has been like the acid flashback, only without the acid: someone on the radio crooning “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime,” and seeing at the supermarket Magic Fruity Pebbles
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
— Abraham Lincoln

Gentle Reader, when I first set to work on this post, its heading was The Plan, Insofar As We Might Call It a Plan, If Having a Plan Even Matters. The cosmic irony of this will reveal itself hereafter. The first thing is our 8 April concert at King’s Chapel. We have our first proper rehearsal of the Trio this Thursday. If that may seem unusually late in the cycle, in the first place I do not deny that, and in the second, all the players will come into the rehearsal superbly prepared. The long and the short of it being that, I believe we are in good shape. The second-ish thing is my as-yet-blunted attempt to book a venue for another concert of the full quartet. I’m still hoping to confirm Option B (which the scheduling demigods have seemed to nudge to first availability) for a May date. We four shall need to powwow in order to find a summer date for Option A (a venue where we have played a few times already.)

So much for the Housekeeping, so to say.

The plan for creative work at present is: first, the Opus 199 Ossman setting, and then the Opus 197 Kirk Fantasia for the Henning Ensemble. I had made a start on the Op. 197, and some days later chipped away at it, bringing it to about three-quarters of a minute. Work on that will proceed nicely whenever I may return to it. As to the Op. 199, as soon as David gave me the go-ahead, I began to sketch the opening trombone statement. As reported here, though, I had not yet formed any idea of how the choir should participate and declaim the text. Nor had I any notion at the time, earlier today, when I set to work on this post. This afternoon, after a refreshing nap, however, a solution flashed upon my consciousness, which is either absurd insanity or simple genius. If the latter, it will be yet another piece to vindicate my “Don’t Do Something, Just Sit There” method of awaiting the Muse’s pleasure. And now, I shall set myself to settling the Insanity or Genius? Question. Watch This Space.