The Callow Symphony
Symphony No. 1 in C Major
by Shuang Wu (2024)
Duration: ca. 30 minutes.
Score is transposing.
Instrumentation:
2 flutes
2 oboes
2 clarinets in Bb
2 bassoons
2 horns in F
2 trumpets in Bb
1 tenor trombone
timpani
bass drum
cymbals
strings
Performance notes:
At the conductor’s discretion, all movements can be performed with attacca between them or without.
Program notes:
Do our naïve selves have to die so that our mature selves can be born? Are we still ourselves after our growth? To answer these questions, this symphony takes us to a journey of a callow youth.
The first movement introduces the protagonist, adventuring in his neighbourhood, confident, curious and joyful. At the end of the first movement, he firmly believes he’s ready for adventuring to a foreign land.
In the second movement, the protagonist adventures to a land of unknown, full of wonders and dangers, and he tragically dies there.
In the third movement, he is in a near-death dreaming state, and waltzes with and talks with his destiny.
The fourth movement, the finale, is his afterlife, where he finally learns his death, and is reborn with a mighty new life infused with everything in his past.
I personally experienced this journey of growth several times, with the biggest ones being when I left China and came to Newfoundland (Canada) by myself in my early 20th; and when I believed in Jesus (and this narrative is also heavily inspired by my Christianity belief and the Biblical doctrine that one must deny themselves and be born again). In every major growth, there was a part of me that had died – old values, old views of the world, old ways of living, old relationships, etc. But every time, my post-growth self still carried the influence of my dead past. I am still me.
So, perhaps, our old selves will die, but part of it will carry on being part of our new selves.