Symphony (after "The Still, Small Voice")

I consider this work an embodiment of "East meets West." It is, for me, a musical reconciliation of living on the Western edge of the Pacific Rim, where Western philosophy and culture are infused with those of Asia and the Orient. The sub-title, "after The Still, Small Voice," refers to an earlier work of mine which was inspired by the teachings of 8th-Century Chinese Zen Master Hui-Hai (also known as Huang-Po), the musical manifestations of which I continued to work out in the subsequent Symphony.

Rather than make direct references by borrowing from the musical traditions of Asia or the Orient, I chose instead to capture elements of the philosophy and use those to govern the aesthetic considerations regarding the overall idea for the piece. In the Symphony, the registers, rhythms, colors, pitch content, and temporal relationships are drawn from an intricate system of constantly expanding and contracting ratios; a flowing "breathing in and breathing out," if you will. Exterior to this inner flow, the larger structure of the work is inspired by the Classical symphony and is, therefore, in sonata-allegro form, complete with an Adagio introduction. It is separated texturally and thematically into exposition, development, and recapitulation and yet, as the expansion and contraction motif asserts itself, contains a few startling twists in the traditional form. The work concludes with a very lengthy Coda which is based on a lyrical, more serene transformation of the material from the main section.

E.M.