Derek Strahan - Eden in Atlantis


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FormatCD
CatalogueJADCD-1074
Barcode
Items in Set 1
Play Time63:25
Year1997
LabelJADE
Websitehttp://www.revolve.com.au
Emaildstrahan@revolve.com.au
CountryAustralia
IMS NoR1S3B10/I7
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Jade CDs are widely heard on national and fine music stations throughout Australia, and are recognized as a valuable resource by educational authorities as being uniquely representative of the work of Australian composers. They are manufactured in limited runs of 500 and stocks are therefore may be regarded as collectors’ items! All Jade CD covers are distinctive. Most Jade CDs have an anthology format and include works by several composers. It’s great to have these CDs on offer for a wider audience at iMusicStage.

"EDEN IN ATLANTIS" JADCD1074 Works by: Derek Strahan, Eric Gross, Colin Brumby, Dulcie Holland, Robert Allworth. Duration: 63.25 Title work is a 25 min. Scena for Soprano, Flute/Alto Flute & Piano , music & libretto by Strahan, which develops material intended for the first of a cycle of four operas on the subject of past civilisations lost to global cataclysm. The libretto (which is included in liner notes) describes Eve’s recollections of a lovers’ tryst and also denotes an earth which is geologically different. It is performed by Liza Rintel, Michael Scott and David Miller. Other major works are Holland’s eloquent 1993 Cello Sonata, and Allworth’s impressive 1988 Concerto for French Baroque Lute & Chamber Ensemble. Two short works provided further contrast: an organ choral by Brumby and "Thanksgiving", a piano solo by Gross, celebrating the 40th wedding anniversary of relatives living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. More about "EDEN IN ATLANTIS" A Scena for soprano, flute/alto flute & piano (1996) Duration 25’00" Music & Libretto by Derek Strahan The libretto is given first, followed by notes In the fourth cycle of the second moon which is the closer of the two when the first moon was in eclipse my lover joined with me in that protected garden on the enchanted mountain which joins our land to the spirit realm above. Our first kiss was given enshrouded by pallor as etheric Malkuth shone alone amid the constellations. Then as our passion grew celestial Selene appear’d again bathing entangled limbs of vines and trees in cascading argenteous light. In this wall’d garden Aromatic blossoms scented the heavy air, mist lay on our nakedness, earth’s warmth caressed, enfolded. Lost in each other we pass’d the night hours in endless embrace. At dawn, as we lay in bliss together beneath the outstretch’d arms of an ancient bo tree laden with ripe figs the vast furnace of the Sun rose in the western sea angry red becoming bronze. Around it the sky darkening to purple brighten’d from within finally to glow with the deep turquoise of its accustomed canopy. We prais’d the Sun who warms our land in constant heat from the first to the last day of her cycle numbering sixty and three hundred. Later breaking our fast on fig, pomegranate, berry and golden apple, we mov’d to a verge on the cliff edge where we reclin’d looking down on the temple of Alconuz built on the shore below its gilded roof brazen in the Sun’s radiance. And as the day grew ever more fecund in its power and as the air grew hazy with coiling mist feeding the fruiting earth we watched two colossal serpents in the slow heaving of the deep lash their tails and writhe about their bodies entwined in frolic as they like us delighted in their play in the calm confines of the bay. Atlantiha! Other “Atlantis works on CD. “Atlantis Variations for solo piano” Pt. 2 may be heard on "An Australian Festival’ JADCD 1095 and “Atlantis Variations for solo piano” Pt. 3 on "Autumn Rhapsody’.JADCD 1096. An adaptation of the libretto for "Eden In Atlantis" can be heard on the spoken word CD "Past Life Recall" RDS005. These CDs are available at iMusicStage. "Eden In Atlantis" is a 25-minute Scena for soprano, flute/alto flute and piano.

NOTES BY THE COMPOSER This is the second work written to develop material intended for inclusion in a proposed cycle of four operas on the subject of civilisations of pre-history. It was commissioned by Michael Scott and composed in 1994. It was given its premier performance in 1996 heard on this CD. Performance was by Michael Scott playing flute/alto flute and pianist David Miller. The soprano part was given by Liza Rintel who has sung leading roles with Opera Australia, including that of the Queen Of The Night in Mozart’s "The Magic Flute" both touring with OzOpera and sharing the role with Jennifer McGregor in the 1995 opera season. The premiere performance was given on November 15 1996 in the Joan Sutherland Studio at The Opera Centre, 480 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, Sydney (New South Wales, Australia.) For a complete overview of the "Atlantis" opera project please go to the Atlantis Files, at Derek Strahan’s website: http://www.revolve.com.au The topic of Atlantis first entered the public domain through material on Atlantis found in the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato which date from around 400 B.C., and to modern commentaries on Plato. Debate on the topic over the past 100 years has widened to include speculation that Plato’s account of an ancient civilisation destroyed by cataclysm may indeed be based on fact, giving some credibility to parallel accounts found in the mythology and religious beliefs of many cultures. Science has recently found proof that the earth has been subject to global upheavals many times in the past, upheavals caused by natural phenomena such as asteroid strikes. Dating these events is still problematical, as is the age of human civilisation, and this is a topic which students might wish to explore in the considerable literature available on it. A four-opera cycle based on global cataclysm clearly has a previous model in Wagner’s "Ring of the Nibelung", and, while I have, of course, found inspiration in that achievement, I also feel that it is worth attempting to write a work of similar scale which offers a modern perspective on this kind of eschatological scenario. There are parallels between Plato’s account of Atlantis, Nordic myth, and the scriptural narrative about antediluvian civilisation found in Genesis, the first chapter of the Hebrew/Christian Torah or Bible. (This account is in turn based on earlier Sumerian literature.) Many writers apply a reductionist approach to mythology and religion, some attempting to reconcile religion and science, some treating mythology as history and seeking a rational explanation for fabulous events. It is fair to say that all are seeking the truth .about human history on this planet. The Great Flood is not the only event of global import recorded in human beliefs about our past. There is also the belief in an earlier Golden Age, which was itself terminated by a disaster of some kind, possibly by fire (though fire is often described as being followed by flood). In developing a scenario for the four-opera cycle I came to feel that, to give a proper perspective in time, the first opera should be set in the Golden Age, as a contrast to the later age of Atlantis. As a part of my work-in-progress for the first opera in the cycle, I wrote this 25-minute Scena "Eden In Atlantis". As can be inferred from the libretto (above), the scenario aims to evoke a geologically different world - an earthly environment prevailing in the age before the high civilisation of Atlantis: a Golden Age, a time of Paradise. My libretto contains numerous references to the condition of the planet in this remote era, a composite of beliefs from many cultures: a composite which is, of course, poetic guess-work on my part. The term "Eden" is used generically to denote Paradise. "The word paradise comes from the Avestan (Old Iranian) word Pairi-daeza, meaning a walled or enclosed garden" (’Memories & Visions of Paradise’, Richard Heinberg). "All neolithic and Bronze Age paradises were orchard-islands." (’The Greek Myths’ Robert Graves). The Bushmen of South Africa have a myth that a large continent west of Africa disappeared at an epoch when there two moons. Several cultures assert there was a time when the sun rose in the west, implying that the rotation of the earth was once reversed. Taking the 360 degree circle to be an ancient calendar, the libretto refers to a year of exactly 360 days, when, presumably, the Earth’s orbit was closer to the sun which appeared larger than now, and gave more heat. I have also assumed that the axial tilt was nearer to the vertical, resulting in a climate of eternal summer and producing the conditions attributed to Paradise: a garden of eternal summer, perpetually in fruit. ("Genesis" states that when man was expelled from Paradise he had to till the earth with the sweat of his brow. This could mean that, after the axis tilted to its present position, plant growth was subject to seasons, leading to the invention of agriculture.) In my proposed opera, an asteroid collides with the second moon, destroying it, and, by successive impacts, destroying on earth the geological basis for Paradise (The Evening Star fell to earth?) However, this Scena seeks to evoke one event in a story set in a forgotten place, in a forgotten time, before disaster struck. Although elements of the Genesis narrative are present - lovers, a fig tree, serpents, they are presented as in nature, devoid of mythological significance, which came later. Thus, the two lovers of this scenario are not the Adam and Eve of Genesis, though they are named after them, nor is this Eden the Eden of Genesis, though named after it. However, the Golden Age portrayed is intended as the Golden Age of mythology which, I have to assume, was the age of the Goddess, since this age predated the patriarchal age of Atlantis. The lovers are members of a closed community fortified by walls against a wide variety of fauna, including many now extinct species described in mythology as monsters, dragons and serpents. This world of untamed nature must have been a "paradise" for all species! The particular "Eden" of this story is located in what later became "Atlantis". The Scene takes place in a walled garden and depicts a night-long lovers’ tryst, as recollected by "Eve". The music "moves" through four distinct sections, corresponding to the passage of time. Stanzas 1 & 2 set the scene in the garden as the two moons appear. Musicals themes are heard which aim to invoke a sultry, humid atmosphere, which persists as darkness falls, and the two moons appear. The theme for the principle moon invokes the hunt. The singer (Eve) invokes her attachment to her land, and the setting for the tryst with her lover. There are three different melodic settings of Stanza 3, each rhapsodic and each set to the same harmonic basis. These depict the lovers’ passion through the passage of night. Stanzas 4, 5, 6 depict successive stages of the arrival of day, and introduce a "Sun" theme to conjure the intense heat of a sun which is warmer and larger, because closer. In the final stanza the lovers watch two large sea serpents at play in the bay below, and Eve’s recollection is set to a syncopated melody as she compares the serpent’s frolic to their own romantic entanglement. In the Coda, the principle theme for Atlantis is heard as an exultation. Annotations to the libretto Malkuth is an early name given to a "ghost moon". Selene is an early name for Luna (hence "selenites") Alconuz is a name associated with the "ten books of wisdom" of Adam which were dropped from heaven, following the expulsion from Eden. I have "pre-dated" the use of the name, by giving it to a temple of worship in this earlier age. Given the way meaning is hidden in mythology, it is possible to interpret the "expulsion" from Eden as being a "saving" from Eden: and the "flaming sword" which bars to re-entry to Eden as the fire which destroyed it (Eden no longer exists); and the status of Adam and Eve (as "first humans") as denoting those who survived the destruction of Eden to become the "first humans" of the new age. The moons are given great importance in the opening stanza, and the (present) Moon has its own musical motif (see below), Worship of the Moon is of great antiquity dating back to the era of Goddess worship, when societies were matriarchal with, no doubt, quite different laws regarding property and inheritance. Robert Graves, in his monumental writings on mythology gives ample evidence that such societies existed. As patriarchy gained control, major deities underwent a sex change! Two examples will suffice. The Greek God Uranus is associated with the Golden Age. But his name is a masculine form of Ur-ana, Queen of the mountains, of summer, of winds and of wild oxen, representing the Goddess in her orgiastic midsummer aspect. And it is surprising to learn that the Hebrew name for God, Jehovah, or Yahweh is the masculine form of the Sumerian Goddess, Iahu, which means exalted dove. Goddess worship survived in cult form into the patriarchal age. Most durable was the Cult of Diana, the Roman version of the Greek Goddess, Artemis. Diana was originally a woodland goddess, a tree spirit, mistress of the forest creatures and the hunt, who became associated with Selene or Luna (the Moon) through her identification with Artemis. This is why the motif associated with the Moon is given a primal character, like a hunting call played by natural horns using the notes of the natural harmonic series. The final cry of the libretto - "Atlantiha!" is a Mayan word (atlan ti ha) meaning "Sun - big place - water". The Maya believe that they came from this place when "the waters took the big stone of knowledge". "Atlantis" is therefore as much a heritage of the Maya as it is of the ancient Egyptians from whom Plato’s story derived. (Unfortunately the Spanish Conquistadores destroyed all but 20 books of Aztec and Mayan culture). Derek Strahan


CD
Track 1Dulcie Holland: Sonata for Cello & Piano, 1st Movt
Track 2Dulcie Holland: Sonata for Cello & Piano, 2nd, 3rd Movts
Track 3Robert Allworth: Lute Concerto, 1st Movt
Track 4Robert Allworth: Lute Concerto, 2nd Movt
Track 5Robert Allworth: Lute Concerto, 3rd Movt
Track 6Colin Brumby: O Sacred Head Sore Wounded
Track 7Eric Gross: Thanksgiving
Track 8Dulcie Holland: Fairy Penguins
Track 9Derek Strahan: Eden In Atlantis, Scena for soprano, flute, piano




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