I completed the first draft of my second symphony in the summer of 1961. The work was inspired by a reconciliation (hence the subtitle) between two loves: science and the arts. I spent many years in my youth as an amateur astronomer (both visual and radio), studying mathematics, relativity, and quantum theory. But I also spent an equal number of years performing and composing music, painting, and writing poetry. As I wrote this work I decided my true love lay in combining these areas rather than treating them separately. My symphony then lay dormant for several years until I wrote a new version during the 1980s. The final version of the work heard here was again revised in 2004, some forty-two years from its original state, and now stands complete. As with all of my symphonies, Symphony No. 2 has five movements in a vaguely palindrome form.