Six Metamorphoses after Ovid

Last updated

Six Metamorphoses after Ovid (Op. 49) is a piece of program music for solo oboe written by English composer Benjamin Britten in 1951.

Contents

History

The piece was inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses . It is dedicated to oboist Joy Boughton, daughter of Benjamin Britten's friend and fellow composer Rutland Boughton, who gave the first performance at the Aldeburgh Festival on 14 June 1951. [1]

Structure

Each of the six sections is based on a character from Roman mythology who is briefly described: [1]

  1. Pan, "who played upon the reed pipe which was Syrinx, his beloved."
  2. Phaeton, "who rode upon the chariot of the sun for one day and was hurled into the river Padus by a thunderbolt."
  3. Niobe, "who, lamenting the death of her fourteen children, was turned into a mountain."
  4. Bacchus, "at whose feasts is heard the noise of gaggling women's tattling tongues and shouting out of boys."
  5. Narcissus, "who fell in love with his own image and became a flower."
  6. Arethusa, "who, flying from the love of Alpheus the river god, was turned into a fountain."

The piece is between 10 and 15 minutes in length.

Music

The music of the first metamorphosis echoes the "free-spirited" character of its titular figure: it is unmeasured and includes frequent pauses. This contrasts with the second metamorphosis, a quick and rhythmic representation of the chariot ride of Phaeton, marked vivace ritmico. The third is slower and is marked piangendo, or "crying". The four-part fourth metamorphosis reflects the atmosphere of a drunken feast or festival. The fifth, marked lento piacevole, is meant to convey the act of staring at a reflection in a pool. The work concludes with a "pleasant and meandering" representation of beauty and flow. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Narcissus (mythology)</span> Character in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a hunter from Thespiae in Boeotia who was known for his beauty which was noticed by all. According to the best known version of the story, by Ovid, Narcissus rejected all advances, eventually falling in love with a reflection in a pool of water, tragically not realizing its similarity, entranced by it. In some versions, he beat his breast purple in agony at being kept apart from this reflected love, and in his place sprouted a flower bearing his name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syrinx</span> Nymph transformed into hollow water reeds in Greek mythology

In classical Greek mythology, Syrinx was an Arcadian nymph and a follower of Artemis, known for her chastity. Being pursued by Pan, she fled into the river Ladon, and at her own request was metamorphosed into a reed from which Pan then made his panpipes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oliver Knussen</span> British composer and conductor (1952–2018)

Stuart Oliver Knussen was a British composer of contemporary classical music and conductor. Among the most influential British composers of his generation, his relatively few compositions are "rooted in 20th-century modernism, [but] beholden to no school but his own"

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Léon Goossens</span> English oboist

Léon Jean Goossens, CBE, FRCM was an English oboist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phaethon</span> Son of Helios in Greek mythology

Phaethon, also spelled Phaëthon, is the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the sun god Helios in Greek mythology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf</span> Austrian composer (1739–1799)

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf was an Austrian composer, violinist, and silvologist. He was a friend of both Haydn and Mozart. His best-known works include the German singspiel Doktor und Apotheker and a number of programmatic symphonies based on Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Metamorphoses is a themed work of poetry composed by Ovid.

Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20, for orchestra is a sinfonia written by Benjamin Britten in 1940 at the age of 26. It was one of several works commissioned from different composers by the Japanese government to mark Emperor Jimmu's 2600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire. The Japanese government rejected the Sinfonia for its use of Latin titles from the Catholic Requiem for its three movements and for its somber overall character, but it was received positively at its world premiere in New York on 29 March 1941 under John Barbirolli. A performance in Boston under Serge Koussevitzky led to the commission of the opera Peter Grimes from the Koussevitzky Music Foundations.

<i>Bacchus and Ariadne</i> Painting by Titian

Bacchus and Ariadne (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts. An advance payment was given to Raphael, who originally held the commission for the subject of a Triumph of Bacchus.

<i>Metamorphoses</i> (play) Play by Mary Zimmerman

Metamorphoses is a play by the American playwright and director Mary Zimmerman, adapted from the classic Ovid poem Metamorphoses. The play premiered in 1996 as Six Myths at Northwestern University and later the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago. The play opened off-Broadway in October 2001 at the Second Stage Theatre. It transferred to Broadway on 21 February 2002 at the Circle in the Square Theatre produced by Roy Gabay and Robyn Goodman. That year it won several Tony Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Hurd (composer)</span> English composer, teacher and author (1928 - 2006)

Michael John Hurd was a composer, teacher and author, principally known for his dramatic cantatas for schools and for his choral music.

Christina Joyance Boughton A.R.C.M. was an English oboist and the daughter of composer Rutland Boughton and artist Christina Walshe. She died in 1963 in tragic circumstances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arethusa (mythology)</span> Nymph of Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Arethusa was a nymph who fled from her home in Arcadia beneath the sea and came up as a fresh water fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily.

<i>Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria</i> Solo organ composed by Benjamin Britten

Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria is a work for solo organ composed by Benjamin Britten in 1946. It was commissioned for St Matthew's Church, Northampton and first performed on 21 September 1946, St Matthew's Day, three days after its composition. It uses a theme from a motet by the Spanish composer Vittoria, both in the prelude and as the basis for the fugue. The piece, which lasts about five minutes in performance, has had a mixed reception. One writer has noted the difficulty on finding a suitable organ on which to perform the piece, given the difficulties in finding appropriate registration to meet Britten's requirements. A reviewer of a concert performance in the 1960s called it "a contrived attempt to make bricks without straw", although other commentators have been more favourable about the piece.

Metamorphoses (Transformations) is a Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus. Comprising fifteen books and over 250 myths, the poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Although meeting the criteria for an epic, the poem defies simple genre classification by its use of varying themes and tones.

Our Hunting Fathers, Op. 8, is an orchestral song cycle by Benjamin Britten, first performed in 1936. Its text, assembled and partly written by W. H. Auden, with a pacifist slant, puzzled audiences at the premiere, and the work has never achieved the popularity of the composer's later orchestral song-cycles, Les Illuminations, the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings and the Nocturne.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 2 (Britten)</span> Composition for string quartet by Benjamin Britten

String Quartet No. 2 in C major, Op. 36, by English composer Benjamin Britten, was written in 1945. It was composed in Snape, Suffolk and London, and completed on 14 October. The first performance was by the Zorian Quartet in the Wigmore Hall, London on 21 November 1945, in a concert to mark the exact 250th anniversary of the death of English composer Henry Purcell (1659–95). The work was commissioned by and is dedicated to Mary Behrend, a patron of the arts; Britten donated most of his fee towards famine relief in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String Quartet No. 1 (Britten)</span>

String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, by English composer Benjamin Britten, was written in the U.S. in 1941.

Phantasy Quartet, Op. 2, is the common name of a piece of chamber music by Benjamin Britten, a quartet for oboe and string trio composed in 1932. In the composer's catalogue, it is given as Phantasy, subtitled: Quartet in one movement for oboe, violin, viola, violoncello. It was first performed in August 1933 as a BBC broadcast.

References

  1. 1 2 "Britten Metamorphoses after Ovid". Philharmonia Orchestra. Retrieved 2 August 2013.
  2. Jane Erb. "Concert C4" (PDF). Tyalgum Festival. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 April 2013. Retrieved 2 August 2013.