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I am still scribbling and tapping away on the two pieces, both of which are progressing well.  The string piece is sounding secure and the Exeter piece has various ideas and themes gradually coalescing and forming either in the back of my mind or on paper.  Also I received confirmation yesterday that the Suite For Two Clarinets has been included in the programme for the Anghiari Festival in the summer, while Shew Me Thy Ways looks like slotting in to next month’s music list at Mary Abbots.

I have also had the opportunity to do some analysis recently, something I have always enjoyed but which has fallen by the wayside in the press of other parts of life.  I always think that a piece needs to be understood in the context of its history and the composer’s intention, but the sad reality is that many performers and conductors simply bypass these concerns.  I count myself among those people, both as performer and conductor, so this is more a criticism of me than of others.

At home things tick along nicely, and the bathroom is getting close to being finished, even though, of course, it is running massively over budget and time.  The next work will be done in an entirely different manner, and I need to keep reminding myself that this is investment, not expenditure, but, well, it still hurts.

I was in Greenwich yesterday afternoon, taking the opportunity to look around the Visions of the Universe exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, which I found thrilling.  I have always been interested in space and what lies beyond, and have often found inspiration in the celestial when it comes to writing my own music – Till All The Worlds Are Gone, dawncedarspring and To The Darkside are just three of my space-inspired works, and I like them all, especially what they have to say.  I still find it extraordinary that people went to the moon less than seventy years after the invention of flight, even more baffling that nobody has been back for nearly forty, but I imagine that the cost/benefit analysis has put paid to that, also the fact that probes can do the job just as well.

I am off to another exhibition tomorrow, part of this household’s resolution to enjoy London just that little bit more, also, of course, to get out of the way of my builder.  There will be more writing tomorrow morning before that, and more progress on these two pieces, I hope, but I am really looking forward to getting my space back.

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