ABSTRACT
Whether talking or writing, I have constantly warned about the danger of the task I am here invited to enter upon – that of attempting to explain my own music, with a view to helping others to understand it more fully. Of course there is much that any composer can say about his own work, but, as Peter Evans once summarized, 1 I speak as one who ‘distrusts analytical explanations as likely to come between the music and the listener’s experience’. So, although encouraged to be closely analytical, 2 I decided to widen the scope and include some consideration of what the astute listener might be able to perceive in a work’s structure, rather than focus merely upon the technical armoury by which it is achieved.
