1988 would turn out to be a pivotal year for James MacMillan, one that saw the emergence of the composer he is today. With his teaching post at Manchester University finishing in July 1988 and all academic commitments completed at Durham it made sense, both personally and professionally, to return to Scotland and to Glasgow where Lynne was already based, working for the Scottish Consumer Council. Although a logical move in many ways, the homecoming was not the return of the prodigal son that it may have appeared. MacMillan returned to a Scottish music scene he had largely been absent from for the past six years and creative contacts were not initially forthcoming. His first action was pragmatic: ‘I came back and signed on the dole’; though this action was short-lived as with Lynne's earnings and MacMillan's first forays into freelance composing his position became increasingly secure. What MacMillan may not have been aware of at the time was how integral to his professional development these first, tentative months in Glasgow were, for the return to his homeland brought forth a sudden surge of new works that culminated in The Confession of Isobel Gowdie in 1990 and his position as Scotland's pre-eminent compositional voice.

The move to Glasgow followed on from a period of creative silence that coincided with the completion of The Keening and the PhD portfolio, and very little music was written in the latter part of 1986 and 1987. This was undeniably a period of creative introspection and aesthetic soul-searching (as many composers do when leaving the safe confines of academia and study) in which MacMillan was looking for ‘a switch in style or a reorientation of technique or stressing of different priorities’. The move away from pieces that had ‘a lot of concurrencies with music that has been seen to be important in Britain’ to something more recognisable with MacMillan's oeuvre of today, ‘a more exciting music … music which is visceral … physical, rhythmic’ was taking place. As was noted in 1992: ‘It was a time for taking stock … for leaving behind his earlier concern with the avant-garde, and discarding the pastoral strains in some of his own earlier music.’