Back in May, I luxuriated in the time I had left in 2025 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my journeyman work on my opus 1 orchestral set. Now, though, it lacks but two days till the new year! Little did I know I’d be spending most of my energies this month of December in moving from one part of Norfolk to another (smaller quarters, but closer to the beach). Also, meanwhile my mafioso muses (he typed affectionately, in an inadvertent alliteration…) insist on pushing through a set of ‘cello solos (almost three, so far…) that no-one on this plane of existence ever asked for! There it is.
My original opus 1, from December of 1975, was a rag for piano called Holiday. This referred not to the seasonal festivities then obtaining, but rather to the bittersweet 30s comedy directed by George Cukor, my favorite movie of all. By the end of 1977 I would orchestrate it and three other piano originals to form my Divertimento I for orchestra. I changed the title to Holiday Rag whilst preserving its unorthodox form. It closed out the set, and is now referred to as op. 1, no. 4. I have dropped all other work, and am spiffing its NotePerformer file up for anyone curious to sample it. (For the record, the first composition for which I have a recording, studio or live, that’s sufficient in quality to be sharing is my opus 3 Bagatelles for strings, my earliest published work.)
In E1 and E2 I promise to invoke, here in E3, further excerpts from the retrospective career essay I have embarked upon. But that was under the assumption that the survey of op. 1 could be completed by this point. I’ll just kick that can down the road again, since the most I can hope to do by tomorrow (New Year’s Eve) is have an adequate audio sample of the Rag ready to share. The jabberwocky verbiage can wait until I’m addressing the opening number, next year. Thus will I have presented the numbers in this seminal suite in the quizzical order 2, 3, 4, 1! Life with Victor.
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