Sometimes you've just got to write a few notes down

I had a radical rethink of the beginning of the concerto over the past few days. I had originally intended to start with a short introduction of 6 notes in the lower strings, and then pow! A woodwind flourish, and a piano statement.

After the dream, it became a pastoral string counterpoint, before the interruption. I had something entirely different in my head, though. I started writing the two melodies, and then it blew up into an atonal canon, building with the help of a retrograde cantus firmus in the bass to a huge climax at the piano's first entrance. I say atonal, but it centres on D (major!), but I don't think you would ever hear it. It is quite dissonant with full statements of the row, technically in a linear progression of I V V/VI VI V/II II V I. It's so blurred by the canon that you won't hear it. In the last bar of the accumulation it breaks the shackles of the canon as well as the rows, with a linear scale form of I, and leads to a pure dominant sonority, and a "motto" figure stated by the piano, harp and a few woodwinds.

The jury is still out, but I may have some interjections over the opening string texture (muted brass/woodwinds). Initially, it was going to be the piano, but I'm now thinking that would be out of place.

Is 2'13" too long to wait for the soloist? Perhaps. It was fine in a classical concerto, but it may be too much here. I'm going to have to think about it.

Next is the solo introduction. It probably won't be completely solo, but I need to balance that long string texture with something of equal weight, and establish my tonal boundaries.

More soon, I hope.