To quote the apt words from the composer of this five-movement work, composed over a period of seven years, "I've known all along it was going to be a symphony... It's just that my ideas take a long time to mature."

The introductory movement is played andante con moto. Low strings play an insistent rhythm on one tone as the other instruments try various ascents on complementary rhythmic figures. This activity increases in intensity toward a dissonant semi-climax but then begins to recede in mysterious suspensions as the bass rhythm gradually ceases.

The allegro con brio second movement opens with tympani and strings in a dynamic, angular dialogue. A wild trumpet cadenza is followed by brass buildups and a nervous triplet string response. Other cadenzas in the winds and percussion accentuate the anxious and obsessive undercurrent. The cello section is treated as a whole to a solo cadenza, building in clever rhythmic changes that are then imitated by the dry, non-pitched percussion (roto-toms, bongos, tom-tom). The violas and a sweet cor anglais solo eventually calm this violent rhythmic agitation and the movement ends in a strange, sustained atmosphere (somewhat like the end of Mussorgsky's Night on Bare Mountain) with a tubular bell struck twice on the same tone.

The third movement is an adagio that immediately attracts the listener with a slowly and ceaselessly unfolding melody of great beauty and gentleness. It seems to suggest more than simple nostalgia or romance, however, some expansive truth is being remembered or reflected upon. The melody passes from the strings to horn, flute, and piccolo. The orchestra builds in anxious tremolos, but then recedes before presenting a full image of what has caused such a feeling. Nevertheless, bits and pieces of imagery keep appearing in melodic fragments, melismatic figures, and subtle shifts of timbre in the sustained orchestration. Sadness and eeriness prevail over the last half of the movement, and buried in the final tones is one quiet tubular bell.

The odd fourth movement is a passacaglia played Allegro moderato. The bass motive is an insistent single low D in the strings. An ancient drama of primitive emotions is being enacted. A theme built of tritones and ninths is heard in the horns, as the brass and winds build terrifying, sustained dissonances. All of the strings join in the rhythm with the tympani. Suddenly, the rhythm ceases and a questioning solo bass trumpet cadenza is answered plaintively by the cor anglais. Seven cellos quietly amass a chord as the basses begin the initial motif, played now without insistence and aggression but with a sense of inevitability. The tubular bell is again heard in the forefront of this receding texture.

The final movement is a Scherzo-Vivace that is like a diabolical joke, a danse macabre with an energetic, relentless bass motif of few notes that is varied throughout the piece in a classical period manner. The piece ends with a Beethoven-esque coda.

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