The concerto ends, as it began, with the soloist and no particular ceremony—a symmetry Cilwa has confirmed was intentional, which is one more confirmation than the First Concerto ever got out of him.

The material of the opening returns, altered by its journey in ways the composer has described as "mostly for the better." What it does not do is return to the key it started in. Asked about this—his First Concerto having ended in its home key, a decision he defended at the time as the least he could do—he said that he had already done the least he could do, once, and that it seemed unreasonable to do it twice.

Back to Xylophone Concerto #2.