Music archive entry

The piece began as a one movement orchestral piece. In the process of writting, it developed distinct movements, and a line of musical argument from start to finish. I therefore owned up to it being a symphony

The four movements are played without break, but there is a clearly marked change of mood from movement to movement. The first movement is in rondo form, with highly dissonant opening material consisting of a bass drone, a jagged rhythmic figure, and percussion interventions being repeated twice. Between are episodes of contrasting material, one founded on repeated quaver movement, and the other on a long descending melody.

The second movement is slow and quiet, consisting of a long descent through a cycle of minor thirds, with melodic fragments above, until deep calm is reached in the bass register of the orchestra and the note lengths begin to grow.

The third movement begins with a gradual transition and accelerando from this point of repose, leading to a series of increasingly long and exhuberant explosions, between which occur leaping figures and references to earlier movements.

They climaxes in the fourth movement, a sudden return to the long melody from the first movement which descends to its point of extinction, after which percussion and string figures proceed to an equally inevitable point of extinction.