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Rhea Enchanted (2016)

For Solo Violin
[Also a version for solo viola]
[Also a version for solo cello]

Commissioned by Anthony Hawley
Dedicated with admiration and gratitude to Rebecca Fischer on her 40th birthday
World Premiere by Rebecca Fischer at the Bay Chamber Concerts in Rockport, ME, 19 August 2016
Cello Version premiered by Scott Kluksdahl in Portland, OR, 10 March 2017
Duration: 5 minutes

Listen to RHEA ENCHANTED as read (not performed in a concert) by Nathan Giem

 

Listen to RHEA ENCHANTED for solo cello as read (not performed in a concert) by Scott Kluksdahl

CD Available

This work is available on
Clarissa Bevilacqua plays Augusta Read Thomas

 
Program Note

Commissioned by Anthony Hawley and dedicated with admiration and gratitude to Rebecca Fischer on her 40th birthday, RHEA ENCHANTED for solo violin lasts 5 minutes and was composed in 2016. Although highly notated, precise, carefully structured, soundly proportioned, and while the musician is elegantly working from a nuanced, specific text, I like my music to have the feeling that it is organically being self-propelled – on the spot - as if we listeners are overhearing (capturing) an un-notated, deeply musical improvisation.

Rhea is the Titaness daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, in Greek mythology and sister and wife to Cronus. In early traditions, she is known as "the mother of gods" and therefore is strongly associated with Gaia and Cybele, who have similar functions. The classical Greeks saw her as the mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses, but not as an Olympian goddess in her own right. The Romans identified her with Magna Mater(their form of Cybele), and the Goddess Ops.

 

Augusta and Becca Fischer after rehearsing Rhea Enchanted

To obtain examination or performance material for this
Augusta Read Thomas work, please contact Nimbus Music Publishing.