Description
According to Homer (Odyssey iv:412), the sandy island of Pharos, situated off the coast of the Nile delta, was the home of Proteus, the old god of the sea. In the Odyssey, Menelaus relates to Telemachus that he had been becalmed here on his journey home from the Trojan War. He learned from Proteus’ daughter Eidothea that if he could capture her father, he could force him to reveal which of the gods he had offended and how he could propitiate them and return home. Proteus emerged from the sea to sleep among his colony of seals, but Menelaus was successful in holding him, though Proteus took the forms of a lion, a serpent, a leopard, a pig, even of water or a tree. Proteus then answered truthfully, further informing Menelaus that his brother Agamemnon had been murdered on his return home, that Ajax the Lesser had been shipwrecked and killed, and that Odysseus was stranded on Calypso’s Isle Ogygia.
This piece, for solo tenor sax, illustrates that mighty conflict between Menelaus and Proteus. Each movement illustrates a different form the god took in his attempt to evade sharing his knowledge.
Composition
The rhythmic motives are based on the ancient Greek poetic meters. I translated these patterns of long and short sounds to musical notation (using the sixteenth note as the basic unit). I randomized the order and deployed the resulting phrase as a sort of idee fixe. Each movement uses this rhythmic idea beginning at a different point.
The melodic content is based on a pentatonic set and its permutations, primarily its modes. I arrayed these pitches into a grid (not unlike the matrix used in dodecaphonic music) and assigned pitches to the rhythmic motives using differing deployment schemes (rotation, chaining, etc).