Huge listening day today – although not of a sort as described in my last post. It’s been an extravaganza of 19th century (mostly) French music as I’ve been working through compiling listening playlists for the course on Erik Satie I’m starting to teach this Sunday. Still, it ticks that box of ‘stuff I wouldn’t usually listen to’ so that’s a good thing, and there were some enjoyable surprises in there. In particular, Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini was far more enjoyable than anticipated (anticipation being based on both the ‘Rachmaninov’ and ‘variations’ aspects, the prospect of neither of which fills my heart with joy).

Here’s the update from the past few days:

I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about what I want to work on next, and don’t really have a conclusion. Crossing Dartmoor seems to have taken up so much of my creative life for so long, that it’s hard to think past it. I think I probably need to just get on and do the next round of funding applications, and if that doesn’t work, just drop it. I think I also need some more research in my life. Without it, I feel a bit lost, compositionally speaking, and lacking in impetus. There’s a lot of maybes drifting about my composing right now and I think I need to think about how to turn some of those maybes into certainties.

Ugh. Vague philosophical discussion. Hoping tomorrow I’ll be more practical!