It will not be long before computers begin writing their own symphonies– perhaps, in light of the present work, this eventuality will not be so unwelcome– nevertheless, in the interim, it remains wholly incumbent upon humans to disinter the dead merely to bury them in a brand-new casket.

Long have I, vulture-like, eyed the cadaver of the symphony with a mind to pick off what I could; alas, by now, naught but bones have been left behind. Yet such circumstances convert vultures into taxidermists; wherefore, with an electric shock and synthetic skin, herein have I sought to animate those symphonic bones again.

The method by which the piece beneath this epitaph intends to evoke a standard symphonic movement is twofold: On the one bony hand, it employs the typical structure of the Type 3 Sonata common to many symphonic opening movements, complete with a double-themed exposition which concludes with a cadence in the dominant key; a central development; a recapitulation of both themes; and a coda. In another respect, this piece attempts to recall the traditional symphony orchestra in its use of distinct synthesized instruments, each, akin to an acoustic equivalent, with its own definite timbre, musical function, and register of operation.

If there exists one particularly unsymphonic aspect of this piece, I suspect it would be the title. At least to my ear, the grandeur and elegance of symphony seems rather incompatible with the squat homeliness of Blunk, an onomatopoetic homage to the piece’s rhythmic underpinnings. Though, I am consoled in this respect by the knowledge that in the Scottish dialect, to “blunk” means to mismanage or bungle; thus, on second thought, this Blunk symphonic movement, bag of bungled bones that it is, appears to me to be quite appropriately named indeed.