The subtitle of Karel Husa's Second Symphony, "Reflections," may be taken to possess a double meaning. By the composer's own account in the preface in his published score, the "reflections" convey a mirror-like connotation by the three movements being linked by material, "united by closely related modes, scales, and rhythmic elements," which are "also used in the sense of contemplations and meditations." There is also a looking back on a few levels. At the time of its composition, minimalism and a new return to tonality had become the predominant trends, but Husa here is quite content to return to a musical language of mid-century. And there is a looking back to an even further past, in the modesty of scale and instrumentation. The work's duration is some 20 minutes and the forces are the same as a mature Haydn or early Beethoven symphony, amplified by a battery of sundry percussion and harp. It should also be remembered that the earliest symphonies consisted of three movements. Despite its largely atonal language, the mood is less intense than the Prague or Earth music of Husa, or for that matter, his First Symphony. The current work received its premiere in Greensboro, NC, by the Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra under the composer.

The first movement, seemingly an alteration of sonata form, opens with the steely sound of harmonic glissandi in the strings, the music seemingly emerging from nowhere, a favorite Husa device. A long, plaintive solo oboe theme unwinds and broadens out with the rest of the orchestra. A climax is reached and subsides to the second theme, a more lyrical atonal theme for the horn. Development and recapitulation are combined, and there is a working out of these with the two main themes appearing in inversion. The second movement is a very substantial 6/8 scherzo, proceeding with percussion only for 49 measures until there is a gradual joining in of the rest of the orchestra. Here the modest "classical" ensemble swells out into a bacchanal reminiscent of Ravel. The finale is a slow movement, its initial meter made ambiguous by alternation of common time and 9/8. The movement climaxes and subsides several times, with the strings assuming the role of percussion at one point. The mood of existential questing reminiscent of earlier post-war music pervades and the symphony fades out, a reflection of its own beginning.

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