The Third Concerto for Orchestra had been simmering on the back burner ever since its stirring origin in the sights and sounds of Brazil and Peru back in 1981.  Inhibited at first by the theft of all the sketches made in direct contact with some very vivid places (the thieves must have been chagrined to find this rather than money), it was delayed later by endless dithering over its actual commission.  Perhaps the long period between raw and cooked helped this huge beast into shapely being.  Impulses that might, too soon, have led merely to picture-postcard evocation deepened and thickened into a complex structure of pure abstraction. 

Or so I thought till, arriving late for the first rehearsal, a sectional for strings alone, I plunged instantly into a sound that reeked of hot clammy fecund strangulated Amazonina jungle...