In the score program note, Unsuk Chin described the piece as presenting "a time lapse of a kind of the history of music: certain aspects of a number of key symphonic works of different epochs are being evoked and poured into new moulds by letting them interact and comment upon each other."
In extracting distinct aspects of works of certain composers, Anton von Webern's art of revealing a 'universe in a nutshell' by means of extreme compression served as a particular inspiration.
Rob Hubbard of the Star Tribune observed, "Chin's Frontispiece is a sweeping collage of fascinating fragments, an eight-minute journey in which ideas clash and collide, most memorably when an uneasy placidity is interrupted by anxious interjections.
"[2] Scott Cantrell of The Dallas Morning News similarly called it "an eight-minute sonic kaleidoscope" and wrote, "Colors, textures, motifs and gestures emerge, combine and vanish in rapid and dizzying swirls and crunches.
"[3] Richard Sylvester Oliver of the Texas Classical Review described the piece as "a variegated work combining fragments of various composers and their distinctive styles in a clever reinterpretation that conveys music's evolution through history.