SYMPHONY No. 1 “Chimera”

For orchestra

Symphony No. 1

Chimera

A seven-movement symphony for orchestra.

Year 2006
Duration 40′
Scoring For
orchestra
Publisher Boosey & Hawkes
/ Sikorski
Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski Score and Rental Material Abbreviations PDF

Commission

Commissioned by the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker.

Movements

  • I. Aegri somnia

    • Troubled Dreams

  • II. Post tenebras lux

    • After Darkness, Light

  • III. Gorgoyles

    • Gargoyles

  • IV. Et in Arcadia ego

    • Even in Arcadia, I Am There

  • V. Siste, viator

    • Stop, Traveler

  • VI. Humum mandere

    • To Eat the Earth

  • VII. Requiem for Icarus

    • Requiem for Icarus

Work Information

Full Title
Symphony No. 1 “Chimera”
Scoring
For orchestra.
Year
2006
Duration
40′
Instrumentation
3(alto fl).3(cor anglais).3(bass cl).3(db bn) – 4.3.3(bass trbn).1 – timp, perc (trgl, crystal glasses, chimes, flex, bass dr, gong, glsp, vibr), harp, piano, strings.
Abbreviations PDF
Commission
Düsseldorfer Symphoniker.
First Performance
10 November 2006 — Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, John Fiore, Tonhalle Düsseldorf.
Publisher
Published by Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski .
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski for the world.
Rental
Score and rental materials: Zinfonia .

Symphonic World

Chimera suggests a being made of incompatible bodies: mythological, hybrid, impossible, and alive. Auerbach’s first symphony inhabits precisely this territory — a world of metamorphosis where dream, grotesque, memory, ritual, and myth are fused into one orchestral organism.

The Latin movement titles create a sequence of thresholds: troubled dreams, light after darkness, monstrous architecture, Arcadian mortality, the traveler halted before a grave, earth-bound hunger, and finally the requiem for Icarus.

The symphony moves between heavy matter and dangerous flight. Its final image is not simply collapse, but the afterglow of aspiration: the mythic body burns, falls, and remains singing in the orchestra.

Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski logo

Publisher and Materials

Published by Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski. Score and rental materials are available through Zinfonia.