It has been one of those days, but in a good way. I have finished the first draft of the orchestration of 1215, got ahead with the remainder of my urgent work and seen the day through to a successful conclusion. After the rush and the foreign jaunt of the past week I have also striven today to catch up with all the administration that comes with impending landlorddom, accumulating all the worries and stresses that entails, to receive, late in the day, a reply from my tenant putting my fears solidly to bed. After everything, after the searching, the funding, the buying, the moving, the renovating, the worrying, the funding (again) it seems that a goal has been reached. I would like to say that it feels good, and I am sure it will, but for now I am in a little bit of a vacuum, as if the light-speed of the past months has suddenly calmed to silence, the turbulence of launch given way to the floating of space flight.
If that language sounds all a little decorative, then so be it. The genesis of the move was nearly nine months ago, something which I pushed through at least a year, probably more, before I had originally intended to do it, the birth of 1215 even further back. Neither has been a burden, both have been thrilling rides, but it will be good to wake up tomorrow and to remember what calm feels like. I think I might just leave my alarm switched off and see when it is that daylight wakes me.
It all moves on, of course, tempus fugit and all that, and tomorrow evening we will probably be running through some of O God Of Earth And Altar with the Parliament Choir. I managed to get ahead on the orchestration of this a couple of weeks ago when I happened to leave the 1215 files on the wrong memory stick, so that inconvenience has been turned to advantage, meaning that I am well on track to get the parts ready and supplied by the end of the week.
So the question of what to write next, which has not really been in my mind for the past year or so, is now hoving pleasantly into view. There are three commissions to be getting on with, also a couple of incomplete pieces from the beginning of 2014 which were put aside in order to focus on 1215. I feel that there are some other large-scale works within me as well, especially after all I have learned from working on 1215. Maybe it is time to go back to the Viola Concerto, or maybe it is time to chase another big commission (however that is done). Then again, maybe it is time to aim high and do both.
Nicholas O'Neill 