Quick work

Last week I wrote an eight minute piece (sonata?) for violin and piano in a single day.

Doesn't happen often: one has to be quite selfish, the dinner does not get made, nothing is tidied up, no emails are answered. The last time I managed it was the central movement of 'The Lonely Woodpecker' that I wrote – and had performed! – on the 7 March 2023, during a residency in at the Banff Center in Canada.

The piece I've just written is for two RCS graduates, Inês Soares and Baichuan Hui, violin and piano. The title ‘p01ntless’ is on the face of it a little depressing, although the programme note, after some misdirection about table tennis points, claims it is ‘about meaning and purpose, struggle, and joy’.

(I’m not sure that’s true – what could it possibly mean to say that a piece of music is ‘about’ something?)

Right now I'm in a place of trepidation as they haven’t come back to me since I sent them the draft. Maybe they will hate it. Maybe it’s unplayable, or trivial. Maybe I’ll hate it.

We’ll see. Performance in St Andrews sometime in September, I gather.