The works I wrote a considerable amount of music when I was about 17 and still at school, studying for A levels. Several of these pieces, and a few of my later works, are probably suitable for home consumption by groups of friends. This group of works includes the Two Fantasias on “Scarborough Fair”. No.1 for flute, violin, ‘cello and piano is the most successful of all these works, and was performed in a school concert. No. 2 is scored for flute, two oboes, two clarinets, three violins (only one of which gets to play the tune) and piano. Both include tunes of my own, used as episodes between groups of harmonic variations on the theme song. Another piece of chamber music in this category is the Sonata in A minor for oboe, two violins and piano. Prospective performers should be forewarned of the pervading melancholy of this work: the only ray of sunshine comes when the second subject is recapitulated in an unexpected few bars of C major. The Pastoral Fantasy for oboe and two clarinets is of less merit; friends would do better to find a third clarinettist and tackle the Minuet and Finale, one of the most rewarding of my early works. Also rewarding – for solo piano – is the set of twelve variations on a theme in E major that takes as its starting point a favourite melodic pattern of Schubert. Any combination of treble and bass should enjoy the Duo movement in B flat major. This originated as a counterpoint exercise when I needed evidence of my ability in that field. The result is worth playing: I think it works best on violin and ‘cello, but there is no reason why it should not be played by any combination of treble and bass, including solo keyboard. This is probably the best point at which to refer to a couple of later pieces, the two Doodles for piano. It would be difficult to find a context for the performance of these interesting exercises in compression, written to fill empty pages in manuscript books, left by the completion of larger works. Solo piano I wrote more works for piano solo than for any other medium, in a wide variety of forms and styles. The best of these actually date from the 1990’s, long after I gave up composing. All good rules supposedly have exceptions, and these two pieces came about as a result of tasks undertaken in the course of studying at Anglia Polytechnic University for my B.A. in Music. The Andantino in F minor, which has become my signature tune, takes a turning motif common in the works of Chopin, and makes a complete piece out of it and a wittier idea featuring lots of rests. Variationen B-dur, zur übung der faust, my only collaboration with another composer, takes from two pages of one of Beethoven’s sketch books ideas for a set of variations, and with the help of some of my own ideas for further variations elaborates them into a complete piece. An essay about the creation of this piece is available from me. The composition of the Polonaise fulfilled a desire to produce a work emulating the tradition of the 19th century virtuoso show piece. If you think a polonaise (three beats in a bar) in D flat major cannot begin in A minor with four beats in a bar, this work will revise your opinion. It was actually some twelve years after composition when it dawned on me that the analysis of this introduction, and the important role of the note A natural or B double flat in the subsequent music, is thoroughly logical. The polonaise also illustrates (as mentioned earlier) how an idea can enter a creative person’s subconscious and emerge some time in the future. Worthy of consideration too is at least one of the Four Seasons in Ragtime These and the Ragged Rondo (‘cello and piano) are evidence of my delight in the works of Scott Joplin, Fats Waller and “Cow Cow” Davenport, to name just three eminent ragtime, jazz or blues pianists. The most effective sequence for performance should have been to work backwards from summer to autumn, but since at the time I stopped composing Lazy, Hazy Rag had progressed no further than a few bars in my head, only three seasons are extant. Pretty ring time is a gentle “rag en rondeau”, a form that I used as an excuse for indulging my predilection for writing variations. In the bleak is an intellectual rag, containing a mini-fugue, development and inversion of themes, and bitonality: in the final section, E major and E flat major clash so outrageously as to bring to mind the epithet “you cannot be serious”. Autumn Sunshine is a rip-roaring, foot-stomping quick rag with smash-hit mass appeal, a rousing conclusion to the set. One of my last works, for piano, in D major, marked adagio molto and in 5/8 time, is a meditative, contemplative piece that best conveys its message if approached without preconceptions, and consequently exists without the encumbrance of a title. Besides the aforementioned set of variations in E major, there is a solo piano version of Sonnet (see later); and Thought, which appears on the surface to be a piece of piano music, but is actually a concept, and cannot be performed on account of the instruction “D.S. ad infinitum” covering the last eight of the ten bars. I forget how this Thought occurred to me: I suspect I was musing on the transience of life, and determined to write a piece that will go on for ever, even though I shall not. The Sonata in E minor is an experimental, neo-classical work, notable mostly for a slow movement that is unsure whether its main influence is the blues, or the “Spanish” music of French composers of the early 20th century. The first point of experiment is the insertion of this movement between the development and recapitulation of the opening allegro, the first three notes of the slow music’s principal theme being also the first three notes of the second subject of the allegro. The second experiment is the contrast in scale between the resulting long movement and the very short concluding presto. Variations and studies was an interesting idea, but it did not work very well in practice. The variations, on what starts out as a rather trivial theme, alternate with a set of studies, pairs of which are variations on each other, except for the study in quiet playing that forms the work’s centrepiece. Although the whole piece plays without a break, the result is rather fragmentary.The formal experiments of the piano sonata are manifest in other works. Solo woodwind The Suite for oboe and piano (which has been performed privately – a generous gesture on the part of Richard Weigall and Michael Jones) begins with two very short movements, followed by a final rondo of at least twice the total length of those first two movements. The rondo’s two episodes are variations respectively on the prelude and minuet (which is not a minuet, the title being one of this work’s musical jokes). Whilst on the subject of mediocre wind solo music, I will mention a couple of movements without formal titles. One, for unaccompanied oboe, is a study  in the form of a set of variations on a little original theme in the dorian mode. It dates from the time when I was wrestling with the decision as to whether or not to give up playing the oboe because of weakness of the facial muscles (the weakness won in the end). My catalogue also includes a movement for flute and string quartet: a pleasant enough piece, but in its state of isolation it seems to lack some essential ingredient. A work that seems to have nothing in common with anything else I wrote is the Tarantelle and Gavotte for clarinet and piano. This is a single movement, contrasting ideas in the two rhythms described in the title with each other and with the slow music that begins the piece. continued