Symphony [Myths] (1990)

Movements
I. Futami ga Ura (“The Twice-Seen Shore”)
II. Intermezzo
III. Kyaneai Symplegades (“The Darkblue Clashing Rocks”)

Composer note
In 1966, during my first visit to Japan, I encountered a striking rock formation near the Ise Shrine. The memory of its two complementary masses, quite unexpectedly joined by a long and heavy expanse, their disembodied setting in the coastal shallows off Honshu, the implications of that man-made link between them all contributed to making them a mysterious and radiant icon for me. Serenity, potential, recognition.

About ten years later, a second, incongruous image involving rocks invaded my mind. Cartoonist George Herriman’s legendary “Krazy Kat” always played itself out against a backdrop of the sparse but fabulous rock formations of the American Southwest. One of Herriman’s more arresting notions was that two huge, hand-shaped rocks whose incessant clapping generated tornado-force winds. The savage improbability of two such unwieldy masses crashing together in this way was, in its absurdity, just as captivating as the noble immobility of the Japanese pair.

Over the years, I collected information on this pair of pairs. The rocks in Japan, at “Futami ga Ura,” have various mythic and folk traditions associated with them. The most central of these, rooted in Shinto lore of the 14th century, accounts for the improbable straw ropes. The formation is in fact an atypical torii which frames a third, much smaller, sacred rock (kami ishi) thought to contain the spirit of Amaterasu, the sun goddess progenitor of Japan.

The ultimate source of the clapping rocks — just as complex — was the kyaneai symplegades, or "darkblue clashing rocks" which occur in Greek mythology. This fearful structure was one of the trials faced by Jason and the Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece. Apparently tied to ur-images of icebergs grinding together, sometimes to the peril of ships, this formation had, of course, no specific physical place. It remains today adrift in the minds of those who know the stories. Awesome, unstable, arbitrarily violent.

But just as the wedded rocks (meoto iwa) near Ise contained a spirited rock, the Greek pair bracketed a lyrical flight, that of the Argo (Jason's ship) or perhaps of the dove that flew before it. I have drawn upon these seminal images to conceive two primary movements. The first, Futami ga Ura, depicts a pair of massive structures joined by a three-stranded line of expressive intensity. The second, Kyaneai Symplegades, arises out of mist and offers two cycles of convergence and separation. These two clashes are manifested by two asymmetric series of chords that gradually come into synchrony and then disengage. Lyrical materials try to rise against the conflict of the orchestral masses. Between the primary first and third movements is a second one, a slight chamber intermezzo which combines the central spirit-rock of the first movement with the lyrical impulse of the third.

Symphony [Myths] was commissioned by Suntory Hall of Japan. It was premiered by the Tokyo Philharmonic with Kotarō Satō conducting in Tokyo on 25 October 1990. Symphony [Myths] is dedicated to my longtime and much admired friend, Toru Takemitsu.

— Roger Reynolds