I had been working a lot in Sibelius on fine-tuning my large scale classical composition and I thought it was about time I had an official Opus 1. Having recently been obsessing over the Mahler symphonies I figured I'd compose a set of symphonies that "answered" the grand Mahler ones (in the barest of concepts only). His first one was subtitled "The Titan" -  so mine, "The Cartoonist". I decided whimsy and delight would occupy the world of the cartoonist, with the repeating motif taking on darker tones during introspective sections. There is a lot of American minimalist influence here, notably the two titans themselves, Glass and Reich, but as the movements go on they get more jagged and formal.