Delphi Songs
for soprano, prepared piano, harp and singing bowls (three performers) (2016)
or
for soprano, two singing bowls and piano (two performers) (2024)
Delphi Songs is a song cycle about prophecies and endings. It draws its inspiration from the last recorded words of the last-ever Oracle of Delphi: an Oracle that foresaw its own ending.
In the ancient world, Plutarch called the Oracles obsolete, and today’s scientists regularly speculate whether the Pythia (priestesses) were intoxicated by gas formations in the rocks. Both ancient and modern voices recognise this sense of the sacred becoming mortal..
Delphi Songs is an anthology of four episodes, each exploring this through different perspectives. It uses texts from 480 BC to 2015.
Delphi Songs was originally composed for soprano, two singing bowls, lever harp, pedal harp and prepared piano. A version for soprano, piano and singing bowls is also available.
COMPOSER AND CURATOR / Meta Cohen
TEXT / Evan Bryson (2015), W.B. Yeats (1908), Prophecies spoken by the Oracle of Delphi (pre-Apolline period, 480 BC and 395 AD)
‘A powerful rendering of a woman’s power in both quiet moments and total rage. When van Os sang “Words that called down the lighting…” and flung charges against the interior rot of a falling empire, a real thunderstorm shook Brooklyn.’
Lana Norris, I Care If You Listen
Past Performances
-
ChamberQUEER Constellations
USA PREMIERE
14 June 2024
Coady Green and Elizabeth Van Os
(soprano and piano version)
MITU580, New York, USA -
Conservatorium Showcase
August 2016
Claire Burrell-MacDonald, Josephine Gibson and Rowan Phemister
(soprano, harp and prepared piano version)
Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia