One Day Wonder #216

For 2 horns, 1 trumpet, 2 trombones and tuba.

When I finished this piece, I thought it was the biggest stinker I’d written in a long time. Nothing about it seemed to work out. It didn’t have much of a tune (and its phrases ended poorly) to it and the accompaniment didn’t exactly snap, crackle and pop, either. But in the intervening time, it’s really grown on me. Maybe this is because I’ve gotten accustomed to its badness or maybe it’s because it’s pretty decent after all. I have no idea. Sometimes I write a piece and think it’s really nice, forget about it, return to it to find that there absolutely nothing special about it. Other times, like this, I really dislike the results, but I change my mind for unknown reasons after a little time passes. But there are pieces (#100 comes to mind) that are just so awful that nothing can be done about them. And conversely, my greatest hits (like #12 and #74, among many others) still rock. So I didn’t like this one when it was finished. It wasn’t the raw hatred I experienced with #212; it was more akin to disappointment and frustration that things hadn’t gone the way I’d planned them. Since I forget what I’d had planned, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.