Narcissus (with digital delay)

Description

Critical Acclaim:

"...at her practical, deft and imaginative best...a solo rhapsody upon the classical legend in which, as echoes and reflections enter the narrative, the flute part is enriched by ravishing self echoes and reflections expertly timed. This is a piece that flute players the world over are going to seize on gratefully..."
— Max Loppert, The Times (London)

"...an imaginative and beautiful tone poem, with a program...Musgrave is a composer who unites Scottish common sense and practicality with a vein of high Celtic romance..."
— Andrew Porter, The New Yorker

Composer's Note

The work follows the myth of Narcissus closely: the "live" flute taking the part of Narcissus and the echo effects produced by the digital delay system evoking Narcissus' reflection.

Perhaps the story is best summed up in the quotation from Hermann Melville's Moby Dick: "And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life..."