Symphony No. 2, Op. 58 (1997)

Description:

Symphony No. 2 is an attempt to record personal musical experiences and emotional states.

Of the four movements in the work, the first, Allegro deciso, follows the pattern: Thesis — antithesis — synthesis / Thesis II — antithesis II— conclusion, which, although reminiscent of traditional musical forms, does not coincide with them for two reasons: firstly, because it divides this movement into two equal rather than three sections, and secondly, because it does not rely on repetitive melodic themes, but on musical nuclei that focus on the interval of a minor sixth and reappear, more or less altered, in a different expressive atmosphere each time.

The short Intermezzo, as well as the Adagio that follows, are written in free form and their musical material is intertwined with melodic elements that were either heard previously or derived from my earlier works, but adapted to different conditions of musical expression and processed with a different technique this time.

The Finale, on the other hand, which again is based on musical nuclei, follows the same pattern as the beginning, but only in terms of the first two elements: Thesis — antithesis, which, as they follow one another, give the impression of a lively, often even expressively charged rondo.

The work was commissioned by the Friends of Music Society, completed in Athens in the spring of ’97, and is dedicated, as a tribute, to the memory of Dimitris Mitropoulos.

-This is a near-verbatim translation of Sicilianos’s Greek text.