“This piece was inspired by a journal entry from Ludwig van Beethoven’s notebook, written in 1815:

‘Iliad. The Twenty-Second Book

But Fate now conquers; I am hers; and yet not she shall share In my renown; that life is left to every noble spirit
And that some great deed shall beget that all lives shall inherit.’

Using the beautifully fluid harmonic structure of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, I have composed musical gestures that are representative of the unpredictable ways of fate. Jolting stabs, coupled with an agitated groove with every persona. Frenzied arpeggios in the strings that morph into an ambiguous cloud of free-flowing running passages depict the uncertainty of life that hovers over us.

We know that Beethoven strived to overcome many obstacles in his life and documented his aspirations to prevail, despite his ailments. Whatever the specific reason for including this particularly profound passage from the Iliad, in the end, it seems that Beethoven relinquished [himself] to fate. Fate now conquers.”

–Carlos Simon