Jonathan Shaw

     The material for the "Queen of Hearts" makes an appearance here (and, indeed, it makes a greater appearance within "C.143"), as is the glissando nature between the two chords, even if the notes were not identical. A "water gong" was also included in the finished piece, as was noted in these sketches.

 

    I had written some of this piece in August during my trip to Florida, but I wrote the majority of it when I returned to England in September 2015, ultimately "finishing" the chapter by the 30th September.

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     I say "finished" for some reasons: to start, I am not happy with the result at all. Never had the realization hit me as hard as it did then. My orchestration skills were awful. In the span of a single chapter, I depleted more or less every possible orchestral colour in the palette – how on earth was I to do 11 further chapters and keep the interest going? In my ignorance, I added instrument after instrument, using too much when really all that was needed was too few. While some of the motifs might have worked, the way I orchestrated them completely destroyed them. I had even added to the material I had previously written for "C.79", as if that wasn't busy enough!

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     It was not until after "C.88" (which I shall get to later) that I truly recognized this, which is the reason I have not been working on the piece for many months now, and have instead been working on a little instrumentation booklet for college music students – killing two birds with one stone by teaching myself and others.