Busy as a bee this morning, not even 9:00 and I’m nearly to the lead-in to the return of the R.R.™ theme. However, as I listen to the sudden outburst of the minor agitato theme, it dawns on me that this is just an interlude, not the lead-in to the return. So, more work to be done. Actually, you might recall I had reserved the right to extend this section. It’s just that I thought I would extend the minor section and then plunge into the R.R.™. Now it appears there’s more to come after that. (There is a cat watching me type this as if she has just now noticed that I do this kind of thing. Or perhaps she’s trying to figure it out. She’s the one who, lounging, keeps reaching for the space bar to start or stop the symphony playing.)

10:07 am: Here it is, from the R.R.™ statement to the beginning of the minor agitato interlude. Sorry for the abrupt ending.

5:09 pm: Honest to God, I don’t know how this happened. (You’re listening for the new bit right after the obligatory repeat of the R.R.™ theme.) But it totally works and actually sets up the rest of the balloon section.

9:00 pm: Well, actually, it sounds a little stupid at the moment. But it will totally work once I get it tightened up.

I didn’t post any of the work, minimal as it was, that I did this week, so here’s your first look at it since last Sunday.

It picks up at the end of the opening Lento section. I think this is the first time you’ve heard the Rachmaninov Ripoff Theme™ with the oboe instead of the solo violin. I think it’s better. The solo violin was just a political move anyway, to make Stephen happy.

The obligatory repeat follows, and then, instead of the wistful lullaby-like version of the agitato theme in G major, I’ve launched into an allegro with the agitato theme in D major. More exciting, and it gets us into the keeping-the-balloon-in-the-air section earlier and with more vigor. The lullaby segment will return later, I think.

I cut this mp3 off sometime after the orchestration I’ve been working on runs out and we’re back to the piano sketch of a week ago. Keep in mind, as always, that the computer is cutting off some held notes; dynamics are hit or miss (although I’ve monkeyed with the mixer to make the brass not so loud); and some of the segments are still missing… something. That’s what this week will be about.

Since I’m off this week, I’m going to try to get the balloon-in-the-air section done and be firmly into the Awfully Grand Recapitulation of the Rachmaninov Ripoff Theme™ by the end of the week.

I took Dvorak’s 8th with me in the car today to listen to a couple of things, the orchestration and the development. I learned enough to depress me.

First of all, my impression was (and a study of the score this afternoon confirmed it) that the strings do all the heavy lifting. They never stop playing. They may be playing pads and chords under the winds occasionally, but mostly they’re playing “the piece,” and they never stop. So I have to learn to do that. You would think this was easy. It is not.

Second, the man’s development I have always admired: tuneful, witty, inventive, and beguiling. Seemingly organic. Seemingly effortless.

I know it can’t have been. I know he took a lot of time with each of his symphonies, and he wasn’t just doing it a couple of hours twice a week. It was his day job. Besides his natural gift, he worked at his craft, many hours every day.

I begin to wonder if I would be more productive if I had all day every day to thrash out ideas and discard the less worthy ones. I think this is part of my fear of just generating crap: I don’t have time. I’m not even using everything I’m writing. I am sketching out things that don’t go anywhere. But with Time’s wingéd chariot hurrying near, I’m afraid that I will sometimes settle for what’s on the page already.

Can you tell that this evening’s work didn’t go well? I’m going to eat my Häagen-Dazs raspberry sorbet.

Actually, I spent a lot of time rejiggering some of the orchestration of the first part of the G major section. The solo violin is now gone and in its place is an oboe, with a flute in an upper octave for support. The inevitable repeat has been taken down an octave in the upper strings, which gives it a warmer sound. I also switched the harmony line to the violas instead of second violins. The cellos are now bowing instead of plucking.

The rest of the time I had I started just throwing the melodies to the strings. I think I’ve been dumb to resist letting the strings carry most of the load. Probably what I should be doing is starting with the strings playing everything and then back off from there.

Of course it sounds like crap right now, so give me another day to make sure there’s enough crap to make it worth clogging up your browser with another mp3.

I’ve got to figure out now how to orchestrate the Big Time Recapitulation of the Rachmaninoff Ripoff™ theme. I’m pretty sure it’s in the wrong register for everyone, but it’s got to be in G major, so there we are. Hey, you think this why no one’s written a G major symphony since Mozart? (Well, Stephen can think of only two, Dvorak’s 8th and Mahler’s 4th. Fortunately the Dvorak is a favorite of mine, and a model if I may be so bold.)

If you’ve been keeping up, you will remember that this morning I despaired of moving IV. Lento, Allegro beyond the repetition of the main theme, but then I posted an update saying that “all hell had broken loose.”

Well.

Here’s the mp3 of the new bits. I don’t know that you can tell whether the hell had broken loose. This is what happened. There was no way around repeating the main theme (the Rachmaninoff ripoff), so I just did that. It’s fairly blatty, but at least it’s out of the way. I’ll polish later.

Then I sat down and started playing with the agitato theme, seeing what I could do with that. I’ve been using 12-staff folio score paper to sketch on, and suddenly I found that I had three of these booklets going at one time, with bits and pieces linked across pages, back and forth. As I tinkered with each strand, suddenly each would split, generating another strand on another page that had to be written and then tied back in to the original.

All in all, by the time I quit for lunch and the Masterworks concert, I had sketched out enough music to double the length of the movement so far, and get us all the way to the Big Time Recapitulation of the Rachmaninoff Ripoff™ them.

So what I’ve done here is put the piano sketches into the score. You may not be able to tell where this is heading, orchestration-speaking-wise, but it’s in my head somewhere.

We start (after the twin statements of the Rachmaninoff Ripoff™ theme) with a statement of the agitato theme, very wistful, with simple 8th-note accompaniment. Then it undergoes diminution as well as picking up the tempo, and we’re treated to a variety of keys.

Suddenly the agitato theme inverts, and we get more adventure. Notice the new motif : two descending eighth-notes and a quarter. It starts out innocently enough but immediately swerves into startling harmonic changes.

You may be surprised to hear the original agitato theme enter in a definitely minor treatment, I reserve the right to expand that section. Right now it’s only four measures, the theme repeated.

And then we’re back to the Rachmaninoff Ripoff™ theme. Be patient and keep listening. There are a few more surprises before we hit the Big Time Recapitulation, which is where I stopped.

Marc should be very proud. I just vomited it all up on the page, tied it all together, and stuck it in the score. Now I’ll refine it over the next few days. Those who followed the orchestration of 10. Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way will remember what fun that is.