If you don’t hang around geeky musical circles, it’s unlikely that you’ll know the name Walter Piston, but you probably know his most famous students Leonard Bernstein and Leroy Anderson. Piston wrote his orchestral suite Three New England Sketches in 1959. The movements are titled Seaside, Summer Evening, and Mountains. Piston claims there is no specific narrative in the suite, and that he chose the movement titles arbitrarily. Even so, he writes this little story about the first performance of the sketches:

… a man came up to me, following the premiere, and said, “I hope you don’t mind my saying that I smelled clams during the first movement.” I said, “No, that is quite all right. They are your clams.” Each individual is free to interpret as he wishes.

I am greatly looking forward to smelling clams by tomorrow evening – I’m off to New England for some much needed R & R.