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Symphony No 2
Like my first symphony, Symphony No 2 is a programmatic work. It is loosely based on the first two books of Frank Herbert’s Destination: Void Trilogy. (The third hadn’t been written yet, and it wasn’t clear at the time that there would be one.) The first movement is a sketch of the main character of both novels, Raja Flattery, and depicts no specific action. He is a complex character with a frail but disciplined nature. The second movement, loosely a passacaglia, begins the second novel (The Jesus Incident), but is again more symbolic of the vast period of time between the two books. The final movement reflects more of the action of the second book, as well as the development of the Flattery character.
Woven throughout the work are a chorale representing Flattery himself, which undergoes constant transformation until its final climactic statement at the close of the work, and a militaristic element (a march in the first movement) that is fragmented and finally overcome by the chorale. This sample demonstrates some of the fragmentation of both elements leading to the climax. The superimposition of metric and aleatoric events also permeates the work.
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