This is the first section of a symphony which is being built on themes from the Civil War era. It will be a symphony, rather than a suite of arrangements of themes, because the movements will be structured in a more or less standard fashion, and because the themes will be developed, as here, the theme which is heard in the strings immediately before the "No More Auction Block" vocal, and will be a main theme in the last movement, is derived from this spiritual. I am not calling it a "Civil War" symphony, because it is and will be much more about the themes than history, although history is implicit in the themes, naturally.

I enclose the midi version. There is no gong in a standard midi collection, so the very beginning and very end do not sound as they should, and the timpani don't sound very good on my machine. So, I have uploaded an mp3 recording to soundclick.com/mgjacobs.

<center><table border=1><tr><td>symphony prelude
Symphony 3 (40.5 k)</td></tr></table></center>