The Book of Miracles is a symphonic tone poem inspired by a 16th century German manuscript, Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, which translates into Augsburg Book of Miracles. This manuscript is like a picture book containing visual depictions of the supernatural phenomena that were thought to be the act of God.

The structure of this piece is informed by the way the Augsburg manuscript is roughly organized into miracles sighted from these three “eras”: the Old Testament of the Bible, from the antiquity to the time of production of the manuscript, and finally the Book of Revelation from the New Testament of the Bible.

The introduction depicts Prophet Ezekiel’s vision, which is depicted with apocalyptic visions of the Seraphim (the six-winged angels), Ophanim (wheels with many embedded eyes), and God. It is here that the central motifs of this piece are introduced. Despite the seemingly non-linear structure of this piece, the central motifs, which are symbolic of the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, give the distinct parts of this piece coherence.

The next section, starting with the imagery which I titled “Spheres and Halos”, jumps to a sighting of five suns in Leipzig, on March 21st, 51 AD. Unlike the introduction, this second section showcases these miracles in a quicker succession. The “Spheres and Halos” is followed by the “Hail in Dordrecht”, which frightened people into thinking that the Day of Judgement was coming.

The final section depicts the vision of the fifth angel blowing his horn from the Book of Revelations in the New Testament. This is by far the most apocalyptic and Lovecraftian section of the piece, in which several distinct musical elements, such as the solemn brass chorale, unison strings, sweeping winds, and the thundering percussion, clash against each other to paint the apocalyptic vision of the Book of Revelations. After a brief reprisal of the beginning, the piece then cuts to a vision of Christ, beautiful yet painful: the ecstasy of rebirth after a painful process of death. After everything, the visions disappear.