The perception that identical intervallic matter could be manipulated to make anything and everything was born in another largescale effort of this tangled time (after Clarissa), the near-hour of the original Nursery Rhymes (op. 33).  Writing this, I had the sense of tuning in to the ocean of normal coin-of-the-realm musical usage for the first time. 

The original was performed the once by the wonderful Phyllis Bryn-Julson, as easy with these robust folksy near-clichés as she was with crazed David Del Tredici or ultra-refined Mallarmé-Boulez.  For practical purposes I split it, with some new material, into two (op. 33 a / b);  and made a third selection (op. 33c) for voice and piano.