Walter Meyer wrote regarding a CD he purchased.  purporting to be
Christopher Rouse's Symphony No. 1 and Phantasmata, all performed by the
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra w/ David Zinman conducting:

>The CD display indicated one track only, and what I heard was a seamless,
>highly repetitive work sounding to this unsophisticated ear like an
>annoying cross between New Age and minimalism, that seemed never to end
>and indeed, checking the playing time, I found that, rather than a total
>of 46:28, the darn thing had played for over 78 minutes!  ...
>
>But if the recorded works' identification, rather than their description
>was in error, what do Rouse's Symphony No. 1 and his Phantasmata sound like?

The CD containing these two works (Elektra Nonesuch 9 79230-2) has a
total playing time of 46:28, the Symphony (track one) running 26:58 and
Phantasmata (tracks 2-4) running a total of 19:30.  I feel the disc you
listened to was mislabeled.  This is what Rouse says of the works:

   "In my Symphony No. 1 I have attempted to pay conscious homage
   to many of those I especially admire as composers of adagios --
   Shostakovich, Sibelius, Hartmann, Pettersson, and Schuman, for example
   -- but only one is recognizably quoted (the famous opening theme from
   the second movement of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, played both in
   the original and here by a quartet of Wagner Tubas).  The work is
   scored for two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), two oboes (2nd doubling
   both oboe d'amore and English horn), two clarinets (2nd doubling bass
   clarinet), two bassoons (2nd doubling contrabassoon), four horns (all
   doubling Wagner Tubas), three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani,
   percussion (3 players), and strings.  It is dedicated to my friend,
   John Harbison."

http://www.christopherrouse.com/sym1press.html

And the following about Phantasmata:

   "The work as a whole was completed on March 22, 1985 -- four years
   and a day after The Infernal Machine was finished -- and was composed
   on commission from the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra through a
   fellowship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The title
   comes from the writings of the great physician and occultist Paracelsus,
   who refers to phantasmata as "hallucinations created by thought."
   The first movement, "The Evestrum of Juan de la Cruz in the Sagrada
   Familia, 3 A.M.," also makes use of Paracelsian terminology --
   "evestrum" is Paracelsus' name for the astral body; thus, this opening
   movement represents a dreamt out-of-body "somnambulatory journey"
   through Antoni Gaudi's remarkable Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia
   in Barcelona.  Scored only for strings and percussion, it is followed
   by The Infernal Machine, which employs the full orchestral apparatus.
   This constitutes a darker hallucinatory image, as the immense
   juggernaut, eternally in motion for no particular purpose, is
   represented by a perpetuum mobile wherein the leviathan sometimes
   whirs along in mercurially unconcerned fashion but at others groans
   or throws off slightly hellish sparks, grinding occasionally as it
   changes gears.  Bump is a "nightmare conga" characterized by a bass
   drum stroke on every fourth beat whose oppressive obstinacy adds to
   the overall feeling of menace.  The title, referring as it does to
   dance floor bumping with hips or buttocks, may imply a certain impish
   quality to the movement, but the harrowing surrealism of its execution
   should belie any suspicion that it is largely "light classical" in
   orientation; if I had a corresponding visual image for Bump, it would
   be akin to a gala Boston Pops performance in Hell."

http://www.christopherrouse.com/phantasmatapress.html

-Gene Halaburt