Incidental Music

 To my great surprise it's now around six months since I abandoned the book I was writing. It would have been number five in the Grimhilderness series. 

So what have I been doing with my time since then (apart from gardening, walking, housekeeping with my wife, cooking meals - between us - performing in three concerts in one week, two of them in different locations, and all the church-connected things we do. 

Being a creative person I found it hard not to be doing something creative, and then out of the blue the idea of writing some 'Incidental Music' related to The Counterfeit Queen - the book I published in 2023 - came into my head. 

The result was eight piano pieces written in the second half of last year. I'm still calling them 
'Incidental' although that usually refers to music that accompanies a theatre performance. In fact that was partly how the idea came about: I'd really enjoyed writing the music for Grimhilda! back in 2011/12; there was plenty of scope for variety, for thematic ideas, and there was the probability of getting the musical performed. In fact, the music for Grimhilda! was probably written faster, proportionately, than this Incidental music. 

With the Incidental Music to The Counterfeit Queen, however, there's no idea of the music accompanying a stage production. In fact the titles themselves show that the pieces have a certain randomness about them: 

Liam
Polly
Toby
Polly's Arrival in TEOTE
The Dwarf Council
Stevedore
Miss Chimble
Coronation March

Anyone who's read the book might note that while three of the main characters have  their own piece of music, the Queen doesn't, nor Onopulous, another important character. (Though the slightly pompous Dwarf Council might be said to include him.) Stevedore, the dog (who also appears in The Mumbersons and the Blood Secret) has only a few scenes in this book, and again provides a surprise at the end, and Miss Chimble, while an important enough character, doesn't really come into her own until halfway through the book. There are also some hints of the Dragon in three or four of the pieces. 

The music wasn't written in this order - the Coronation March was the first one off the ground. Polly's Arrival in TEOTE picked up on a theme from the March, as did Toby. Polly herself arrived late on the scene, and Miss Chimble was the last. The ear-worm-like theme for The Dwarf Council - another march - arrived in my head while I was hanging out the washing. And Stevedore just came out of nowhere, and worked. 

I'd like to perform the eight pieces later in the year, perhaps with appropriate extracts from the book read by someone. I'm thinking of combined them with The Fence piano duet, which also has a children's book connection. 

Meanwhile, I'm practicing the eight pieces regullarly (along with other pieces), partly in order to keep my fingers agile, and partly to enable myself to play some of the more difficult spots that I wrote. 

I'll keep you posted.