Collapse

The four sections of the piece draw on different biological and physical phenomena of collapse:

I. Colony Collapse Disorder - a phenomenon in which worker bees suddenly disappear from a colony, leaving the queen, young bees, and food behind.

II. Mutational Meltdown - the accumulation of harmful mutations in a small population, progressively weakening it and threatening its survival.

III. Gravitational Collapse - the inward collapse of a star or other massive body when it can no longer withstand its own gravity.

IV. Collapse of the Wave Function - in quantum mechanics, the reduction of several possible states to one definite outcome through observation or measurement.

At another level, the piece is a set of variations on the opening of Brahms's First Symphony. For me, this music suggests a kind of atomic fission: the basic element of music - the note C - is split in both directions.