0783NOTOrpheus_BirtwistleElegies

0783NOTOrpheus_Birtwistle

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

an album review
Harry Birtwistle sketch
OGCMA s.v. "Orpheus and Eurydice"
Classical Sources:
Plato, Symposium, 179c-e
Diodorus Siculus, Bibl., 4.25.4, 81-82
Vergil, Georgics 4.315-558
Ovid Metamorphoses 10.1-85, 11.66
Apollodorus Libr. 1.3.2
Hyginus Poet. Astron. 2.7

Harrison Birtwislte, Orpheus Elegies, a suite of 16 musical compositions, elegies for various instruments and voices.

Side-by-side: portrait of Sir Harrison Birtwistle and the album cover for his "Orpheus Elegies

Click the "album review" and scroll to the opening paragraphs of the written portion for a glimpse at the role the Orpheus myth has taken in Birtwistle's compositional career. Consider also that Birtwistle has composed two operas that are listed in Reid, p. 783, Orpheus(1974) and The Mask of Orpheus (1986). Cf. Opera 37 (May 1986): 492 - 95.

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.