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ATHENA KERAMITIS (1985) was written at the
request of Harry Sparnaay and Harry Starreveld, who had just acquired a
contrabass flute. It was a most interesting and attractive instrument so I set
out to do my usual detailed research in order to get to grips with the array of effects
that it was able to produce. Athena Keramitis became a sample-book
of sound effects for which I tried to design a suitable musical context. All
sorts of mixing and dialoguing, alternating with solo passages, take the music
from one zone into another, now at odds with one another, now in agreement.
The title is from a work by John Ruskin, and means
'Athena of the Earth'. It is a study of the relations of Athena to the vital
force in material organisms: bird vs. serpent, air vs. earth, spirit vs. matter,
etc.
Athena Keramitis (or Khepera) can be played
as part of the cycle ECLIPSE, together with Gravity's Dance, Aura and
Heterostase. The opening bars of the composition are similar to and overlap the
end of Gravity's Dance. It enjoyed one performance by the Barton Workshop, when
Jos Zwaanenburg played it on a bass flute, adding the lower octave with the help
of an electronic device.
KHEPERA (1997) was written when it
transpired that the contrabass flute was too much of an obstacle for Harry
Starreveld, forcing him to give up any hope of a future performance of Athena
Keramitis. This duo for alto flute and alto clarinet is much more user
friendly and a sweet alternative to that much more demanding score.
Khepera is the Egyptian God whose task it is to
breathe new life in the mummified bodies of the deceased in the underworld. It was written in
memory of my friend, the composer Jos Kunst, who died in 1996.
Several performances of the work have been given by
the duo Harry Sparnaay and Harry Starreveld, as well as by Jos Zwaanenburg and
John Anderson of the Barton Workshop. More recently it was performed by
musicians of the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble in several cities in Russia.
Khepera can replace Athena Keramitis, and be
played in conjunction with Gravity's Dance, Aura and Heterostase to form the
cycle ECLIPSE.
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