For Alexander Goehr, like Schumann, teaching and fostering new ideas and
talent has been an integral part of his life as a composer. In these 15 pieces he uses models (by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Schumann) to explore the creative act. "The disorders of the imagination, recorded as they present themselves, are to be ordered and extended in the hope of 'reaching a symmetry', or a 'true gestalt' [in the words of W.H. Auden, whose poem New Year Letter, 1940, provided the title and context for this project]. But the other way round might work too (and for many does): taking a symmetry (matrix) and making from it a luxuriant disorder. I hope that the possibility of comparing each piece with its appropriate model may give a particular pleasure, not unlike my pleasure in composing in this way."
(Alexander Goehr).