Spent the morning for the first time in my life listening to (reading the libretto along with) Handel's oratorio Samson: a wonderfully rich, allusive experience, comparable in a very different way to Semele and Israel in Egypt. What's richly wonderful and allusive about Samson is Handel's musical evocation of Milton's play, just as Semele faithfully mirrors, provides the sonic equivalent of scene-painting for the wit and pith of Congreve, and Israel in Egypt is the very sum and substance of the Old Testament. Whyever am I dabbling in such vile nothings as twelve-tone "music"? I guess the answer is: Homo sum.