Update Title: 9F342275-8398-497F-904C-B47B8B09CB41

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Symphony No. 4 was composed in 1995 for Jorge Mester. It is a highly personal work - in part an elegy for Stephen Albert, a great composer who tragically died in 1992, and in part a statement of confidence in our future.  The themes of death and rebirth form the building materials of a mosaic structure, in which various ideas are constantly interwoven, altered and recast.  It is best termed "a structure by accretion." When the work is completed one can stand back and recognize that all of the small pieces form a whole, and although the temporal progress of the work is not linear, the reminiscences of the one-movement symphonic form evident.  There is an Exposition, in which the main thematic/color ideas are presented.  This is followed by a Waltz, begun by clarinet solo.  the main section, which stands roughly where the Development would be, is just that :  development of the main ideas in a fantasia-like setting.  (It is adapted from Remembrance:  Elegy for Stephen Albert for piano, which I composed in 1993 for William Wolfram.)  A hushed string section ushers in the Recapitulation, wherein the ideas become increasingly clarified, followed by the Coda, which brings the work to a huge climax.  It is within the content of these small ideas that emotional structure (the most important part) resides.  The three main ideas are stated in the exposition; they are 1) a brass chord, which states the harmonic premise, and which is quickly unwoven into a melodic ostinato; 2) a double-reed chorale, which finds its ultimate statement in the string section which begins the recapitulation; and 3) the interjection in the horns, seemingly an innocent passage in thirds, but ultimately the building block of the entire work.  I have also used several quotations from Albert's symphony Riverrun, in particular the powerful ending of the first movement; it is this theme with which the development-fantasy begins.  This five-note theme and the ostinato in minor thirds, heard directly after the beginning of this section, not only permeate this, the main section of the work, but gradually reveal themselves to be derived from the symphony's main ideas.  There is a third quotation which I use, from Mahler's Symphony No. 9 and from the last movement of The Song of Earth.  The Mahler quote is also an ostinato of a minor third, identical  to Albert's, but purely a subconscious choice on my part until midway through the composition of this piece...when I realized that I was quoting Albert quoting Mahler.  Two other features of this fantasia are a series of cello arias of lamentation, sometimes solo and sometimes as a section, and the depiction of bells in the horns.  The recapitulation, leading to the coda, begins with a setting of the double-reed chorale, this time in a hushed string section.  The various motifs begin to coalesce around the ostinato, the opening brass chord returns, and the coda begins its long ascent to the conclusion.  I wanted to be affirmative - a statement of belief in the life of one great composer, Stephen Albert, whose lineage stems from Mahler, and through the journey from anguish to triumph to restate a belief that what is important is not the person who wrote the music, but the statement that it leaves with us as we leave the concert to return to our daily lives.  At the beginning of the coda, in the score I have quoted: "for everything there is a season, and a time for every manner under heaven." --Edward Applebaum

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