Symphony No. 2, "The Imp of the Perverse"

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Symphony No. 2, "The Imp of the Perverse"" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Imp of the Perverse is the title of Jeffrey Ching's Second Symphony.^[1] It is in a single fantasy-like movement lasting about fifteen minutes. The title comes from a story by Edgar Allan Poe, from which these lines serve as epigraph to the score:

I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and alone impels us to its prosecution… In the case of that something which I term perverseness, the desire to be well is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment exists.