The musical analogy constantly comes to mind. When I was writing "Light Street" I began with an idea from Tchaikovsky, which occurs also in Rachmaninoff's powerfully expressive Second Symphony and at the beginning of Brahms Fourth Symphony and Brahms First piano concerto. It's entirely possible to start a work introspectively, with a siimple phrase as if you were entering into someone's mind in the middle of an afterthought and only very gradually come to more complex emotional settings. Stronger feelilngs are masked or held in check, concealed within a quiet surface- everyone instinctively recognizes such states. To suggest complicated feelings you have only to provide a sketch of a situation: "A woman, reading by herself in bed, has recently suffered a loss." Of course, we know instantly innumerable things that might be on her mind. (7/11/91)