Cupio Dissolvi is a Latin phrase meaning "I wish to be dissolved". This is a 4th-century concept that expressed the Christian desire to leave the earthly life and join Christ in eternal life. 

This concept interested me greatly. Death has been represented so often in music already. I could not think of any representations that sought to express this specific idea of death and the challenge tickled me so. The first movement is a dirge. It reflects the burial immediately following a death and possesses sorrowful tones to accompany those of the bereaved in attendance. The second movement is the journey of the deceased from the earthly realm to the next and is set to a rhapsody. This is the fastest of the movements and takes a singular theme and puts it on its own journey across augmentation, diminution, instrumentation, and key. The eponymous final movement is intended to be the arrival to the destination of whatever may lay beyond the earthly realm. It is a moderate tempo, but is the most challenging of the movements. The tempo is more relaxed because the journey is over, but the complexity present in the ad-hocking is so because of how complicated the afterlife is. Is there an afterlife? What might it look like? How might we get there? Do all dogs go to heaven? It’s complicated.