The title comes from a story by Edgar Allan Poe, from which these lines serve as epigraph to the score: I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to its prosecution… In the case of that something which I term perverseness, the desire to be well is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment exists.
Contrary to his usual methods, Ching worked straight into full score by sustaining the initial burst of inspiration for several weeks, almost in a trance-like state akin to automatic writing, and without recourse to sketches or outlines of any kind.
As with Rodin’s sculptures, the title was chosen after the piece was finished, and implies no literary or programmatic inspiration for the music.
In his second symphony, he explored the possibilities of a consciously anti-Classical approach, fragmented, and avoiding fluid textures in favour of abrupt shifts between extreme moods.
The Poe story parallels the macabre elements in the symphony: A man commits the perfect murder, but after a long struggle with his soul finally gives himself up, not because of a guilty conscience, but because he cannot the resist the thrill of self-destruction, so falling prey to his ‘imp of the perverse’.