Opus 211 Post Mortem

 Improper use may cause hazardous condition
— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I don’t knock my country for what it is — I knock it because I share the dream of so many of us as to what it can be.
— Rod Serling 1970

While listening to Louis Couperin, I learnt what I wanted to do for Simple Prelude № 6. Also, I have learnt that I am happy to leave the Opus 211 as a set of six.

I was unsure just what to write, or even if I wanted to write anything. My friend Luke obliquely inspired me to just noodle at the piano. Of course, I am not literally “at the piano.” I do not own one, and my left hand is not yet fit again for noodling. I decided to write them for my friend Carolyn Ray, without leave and certainly uninvited, and this was another reason to keep the pieces simple, for although she is of course a proper pianist, I should have no business writing an uninvited ambitious piece of music which would be an imposition of time and effort.

So there they are: six slight pieces.

I dreamt last night that I was talking to someone about a set of pieces I was proud to have written. this miasmic set seemed to mirror the Op. 211, only it was a set of ten pieces, all of which had actual titles. (The Simple Preludes have only tempo designations.)

So, I have decided to write a set of ten short pieces for toy piano, Ten Inconsequentialities.