COMPOSER

as wave impels wave
for 4 sopranos, 4 mezzo-sopranos and 19 instruments (2024) 

Instrumentation:
1.2.1.0. – harp. piano, perc(2)-2.1.1.1. – 3 violins, 2 violas, contrabass​

Duration: 10'

Written for the 2024 Black House Collective New Music Workshop 

Text:

Ovid’s Metamorphoses (15:176-185) 'Et quoniam magno feror aequore plenaque ventis vela dedi: nihil est toto, quod perstet, in orbe. cuncta fluunt, omnisque vagans formatur imago; ipsa quoque adsiduo labuntur tempora motu, non secus ac flumen; neque enim consistere flumen nec levis hora potest: sed ut unda inpellitur unda urgeturque prior veniente urgetque priorem, tempora sic fugiunt pariter pariterque sequuntur et nova sunt semper; nam quod fuit ante, relictum est, fitque, quod haut fuerat, momentaque cuncta novantur.

Translation by Frank Justus Miller:

And since I am embarked on the boundless sea and have spread my full sails to the winds, there is nothing in all the world that keeps its form. All things are in a state of flux, and everything is brought into being with a changing nature. Time itself flows on in constant motion, just like a river. For neither the river nor the swift hour can stop its course; but, as wave is pushed on by wave, and as each wave as it comes is both pressed on and itself presses the wave in front, so time both flees and follows and is ever new. For that which once existed is no more, and that which was not has come to be; and so the whole round of motion is gone through again.

​

Performance by Charles-Eric Fontaine and the Black House Collective Workshop Ensemble: