[1] Ian Craft, the symphony dedicatee, suggested that the emergence of life from a fertilized cell could be paralleled in symphonic form, with motives developing by thematic metamorphosis.
This idea appealed to Simpson who took it even further by dividing the one-movement work into two parts: the first a steady build up to a large climax which symbolises birth, the second representing the rapid growth of the newborn individual.
These include triadic shapes in the violins, and a chord which has potential to open out into a chain of fifths which Simpson likened to a DNA molecule.
The material is always growing and proliferating into polyphonic lines, canons, inversions and retrogrades which representing cells dividing, multiplying and grouping.
Eventually a central climax is reached after graphical ‘contractions’ from the orchestra; this represents the moment of birth and brings about a sense of release.