We were peering into this darkness, crisscrossed with voices, when the change took place: the only real, great change I've ever happened to witness, and compared to it the rest is nothing. I mean this thing that began at the horizon, this vibration which didn't resemble those we then called sounds, or those now called the "hitting" vibrations, or any others; a kind of eruption, distant surely, and yet, at the same time, it made what was close come closer...

The darkness came back. By now we were sure that everything that could possibly happen had happened, and "yes, this is the end," Grandmother said, "mind what us old folks say ..." Instead, the Earth had merely made one of its turns. It was night. Everything was just beginning.

—Italo Calvino, “At Daybreak” (from Cosmicomics)

PERFORMANCE HISTORY

July 13, 2018: original version workshopped/read (under the name Cosmic Fractals) by National Youth Orchestra of the USA (Purchase, NY)
James Ross, cond.

May 6, 2024: revised version read by UW Symphony (Seattle, WA)
Ryan Farris, cond.