Each of the four movements of this chamber symphony presents one or both of the two principal themes assigned to trumpet and flute, and an all-pervading, unifying twelve-note theme in a different context as implied by the subtitles. These subtitles do not indicate a programme, but rather illustrate the cyclical nature of the piece with its four stages of transformation. Each movement is divided into two halves: a song and a dance, with brief introduction and codetta (in the final movement however, the coda is enlarged to take up almost half of the movement). The whole work is quite nice, really.

original review