I have finally reached the movement in The Divine Office that is my earliest “official” composition. I have works that I wrote during my time as an undergraduate, including the much of the music for my wedding, that I don’t take all that seriously. Most of it is, honestly, not very good. It is the sort of thing written by an inexperienced composer.
Except for this singular work! I have at different times attempted to regularly compose (and improvise) contrapuntal works to keep the techniques solidly in my tool box. This movement is the one example of a trio that I kept around because I simply liked it. There are several contrapuntal errors that I overlooked, but as so many works even in the vain of the great masters, the piece is more important than the rules.
Okay, that is quite the statement, but I think I realized from the beginning that my desire for the music to work is more important than any musical “rule” given. I have recently been improvising canons because I find them (always) challenging. It has been unfortunate that the recordings have not turned out well. But much as improvisation has guided my aesthetic, here is a great example from the beginning of my explorations that is really nice and points to many of my interests intersecting the ancient and the modern.