the-river-daughter-excerpt

Additional Information

From Ovid's Metamorphoses:

Pursued by Apollo, Daphne calls on her father, the river-god Peneus, to come to her aid: he answers her plea to take away the glamour which so inflamed that solar god, and duly transforms her into a laurel tree. Nothing remains of her but her 'shining beauty'.

Gods move in mysterious ways...

Here, bassoonist and singer Zoey Pepper appears in several layers, describing Daphne's transformation from nymph to shrub:
 

vix prece finita torpor gravis occupat artus,

mollia cinguntur tenui praecordia libro,

in frondem crines, in ramos bracchia crescunt,

pes modo tam velox pigris radicibus haeret,

ora cacumen habet: remanet nitor unus in illa.

Frank Zappa said of the bassoon: 'It has the medieval aroma...I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon. It's a great noise – nothing else makes that noise.' This aromatic old instrument gets computerally twisted and merged with the voice: all the sounds you will hear are derived from Zoey's voice and bassoon.

Details

Year:
2008
Category:
Solo
Recordings:

Instrumentation

Bassoon
1
Electronics
1
Soprano
1

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The River Daughter