English composer Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

 composed the program music

Program music

Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...

 Six Metamorphoses after Ovid (Op. 49) for solo Oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 in 1951. Intended to evoke images of the Roman poet Ovid's

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses (poem)

Metamorphoses is a Latin narrative poem in fifteen books by the Roman poet Ovid describing the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar within a loose mythico-historical framework. Completed in AD 8, it is recognized as a masterpiece of Golden Age Latin literature...

, the piece is dedicated to oboist Joy Boughton

Joy Boughton

Christina Joyance Boughton was the daughter of English composer Rutland Boughton and artist Christina Walshe. She died in 1963 in tragic circumstances....

 who gave the first performance at the Aldeburgh Festival on 14 June 1951. Joy Boughton was the daughter of Britten's friend and contemporary, the composer Rutland Boughton

Rutland Boughton

Rutland Boughton was an English composer who became well known in the early 20th century as a composer of opera and choral music....

.

Form

As its title suggests, it is in six movements, each of which bears a superscription:

1. Pan, who played upon the reed pipe which was Syrinx, his beloved.
2. Phaeton, who rode upon the chariot of the sun for one day and was hurled into the river Padus by a thunderbolt.
3. Niobe, who, lamenting the death of her fourteen children, was turned into a mountain.
4. Bacchus, at whose feasts is heard the noise of gaggling women's tattling tongues and shouting out of boys.
5. Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image and became a flower.
6. Arethusa, who, flying from the love of Alpheus the river god, was turned into a fountain.

Most of the six movements are marked by frequent pauses between phrases, denoted either by breath mark

Breath mark

A breath mark or luftpause or, for bowed instruments, a bow lift , is a symbol used in musical notation. It directs the performer of the music passage to take a breath or to make a slight pause . For bowed instruments, it means to lift the bow...

 or fermata

Fermata

A fermata is an element of musical notation indicating that the note should be sustained for longer than its note value would indicate...

. A typical performance lasts between 10 and 15 minutes.

I. Pan

Pan (mythology)

Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...

 

In depicting its free-spirited, eponymous mythological figure, the first movement is marked Senza misura, or "without measure." This, combined with its frequent phrase-ending fermatas, gives the piece an ad libitum

Ad libitum

Ad libitum is Latin for "at one's pleasure"; it is often shortened to "ad lib" or "ad-lib"...

 feel:

II. Phaeton

Phaëton

In Greek mythology, Phaëton or Phaethon was the son of Helios and the Oceanid Clymene. Alternate, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Merope, of Helios and Rhode or of Helios and Prote....

Marked Vivace

Vivace

Vivace is Italian for "lively" and "vivid". It is pronounced in the International Phonetic Alphabet.Vivace is used as an Italian musical term indicating a movement that is in a lively mood ....

 ritmico, the second movement depicts Phaeton's

Phaëton

In Greek mythology, Phaëton or Phaethon was the son of Helios and the Oceanid Clymene. Alternate, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Merope, of Helios and Rhode or of Helios and Prote....

 ride on the chariot of his father, the sun god Helios

Helios

Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...

. The inexorable, rhythmic eighth notes evoke images of this ride, first ascending as Phaeton

Phaëton

In Greek mythology, Phaëton or Phaethon was the son of Helios and the Oceanid Clymene. Alternate, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Merope, of Helios and Rhode or of Helios and Prote....

 soars too high, then descending as he plummets to Earth:

III. Niobe

Niobe

Niobe was a daughter of Tantalus and of either Dione, the most frequently cited, or of Eurythemista or Euryanassa, and she was the sister of Pelops and Broteas, all of whom figure in Greek mythology....

In contrast to the previous movement, the third movement takes a slower Andante tempo. Marked piangendo, or "weeping", the piece is stylistically intended to evoke images of Niobe's

Niobe

Niobe was a daughter of Tantalus and of either Dione, the most frequently cited, or of Eurythemista or Euryanassa, and she was the sister of Pelops and Broteas, all of whom figure in Greek mythology....

 tears. Towards the end, this figure becomes increasingly manic before ultimately dying away:

IV. Bacchus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

The piece's lively fourth movement is divided into four sections, marked Allegro pesante, Più vivo, Tempo primo, and Con moto, respectively:

V. Narcissus

Narcissus (mythology)

Narcissus or Narkissos , possibly derived from ναρκη meaning "sleep, numbness," in Greek mythology was a hunter from the territory of Thespiae in Boeotia who was renowned for his beauty. He was exceptionally proud, in that he disdained those who loved him...

The fifth and longest movement is marked Lento piacevole, or "slow and pleasant," and evokes images of the titular character's tranquil fixation:

VI. Arethusa

Arethusa (mythology)

For other uses, see ArethusaArethusa means "the waterer". In Greek mythology, she was a nymph and daughter of Nereus , and later became a fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily....

Britten concludes his work with a pleasant and meandering piece that evokes images of the beautiful Arethusa

Arethusa (mythology)

For other uses, see ArethusaArethusa means "the waterer". In Greek mythology, she was a nymph and daughter of Nereus , and later became a fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily....

 and the flowing water of the fountain she became:

See also

• List of characters in Metamorphoses

• "Benjamin Britten and his Metamorphosis" by George Caird, UCE Conservatoire, 2006 - Double Reed News, No 76