Legend
The minotaur was a half-bull half-man creature, son of Minos, the king of Crete who built a labyrinth in which he looked up his son to hide him away from the world. Minos, who ruled most of the cities in continental Greece including Athens, ordered the sacrifice of 14 Athenians, 7 men and 7 women from the best families in the city, to feed the minotaur. Theseus, the son of Aethra and Aegeus, the king of Athens, stood out for his immense strength and bravery. He volunteered to go to the island of Crete and kill the minotaur and so began his journey to Crete. When he arrived in Crete, Ariadne, Minos’ daughter and the sister of the minotaur, fell in love with Theseus. When Theseus promised to take her back to Athens with him, she helped him escape from the labyrinth by giving him a ball of wool that he would use as a guide to get out. And so, Theseus killed the minotaur and, thanks to the ball of wool that Ariadne gave him, he managed to escape the labyrinth. Theseus had promised his father that his boat would return with white sails if he had survived and with black sails if he had not. In the excitement of the victory, Theseus forgot to hang the white sails and his father Aegeus, upon seeing the boat without the white sails and assuming that his son had died, threw himself into the ocean, losing his life and thus giving this part of the Mediterranean Sea its name
Program notes
Birth of the Minotaur – Journey to Athens – Theseus – Journey to Crete – Ariadne – Cretan Labyrinth – Theseus and the Minotaur – Death of the Minotaur. These are the eight sections through which the composer has framed the life of Theseus and his legend. Theseus is known as the protagonist of Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, as well as the king of Athens in ancient Greece. This symphonic poem was first performed in the year it was composed, 2013, by the Musical Group from O Rosal. The polyrhythm, changes in accent, amalgamated meters and the register are only a few of the challenges of this piece which make the composer define it as ‘difficult’. This work was commissioned by the Province of Pontevedra as a mandatory piece for the first section of the Provincial Band Exam in 2014.