Everything changes

Now, only now, the end of January, that we could really feel the winter. Blizzard, strong winds, rain and hail the whole day. It's been a warm winter since I came back to Spain, 10 days ago. With such laziness for going outside, I am re-reading, for the n-th time, Ovid's Metamorphosis. Ah yes, have you heard our latest performance of 2 of my pieces inspired by that? Check it out here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U97fRuNuq9c . I did it with my new friends, John Ferrillo (oboe) and James Sommerville (french horn) from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. .............................................................................................................................................. I made a series of pieces for wind instruments inspired, and based on, characters from Ovid's M. The others are Deianira, whose beauty is the source of her unhappiness for bassoon solo, Arachne the great weaver (clarinet and piano), Narcissus Dying and Rescuing Ariadne (both for flute and piano). Rereading M again, I feel like composing more pieces, this time for other instruments. But first I wanna share with you my thoughts about Ovid and his M. The nice thing about M is that it's so jam-packed that you don't even have to read it all the way through; if you want a taste of what it's about, you can pretty much start anywhere you want, or just look in the index to find your favorite myths, and go straight to those. I can say that it has no plot, or clear storyline. In this way, it's sort of like an all-you-can-eat buffet – with the difference that, once you get hooked, you're likely to go ahead and eat the whole thing. M begins with the creation of the world, which he describes in a mixture of scientific and supernatural terms. Then he talks about the creation of human beings, the Four Ages of early humanity (Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron), followed by the Great Flood that wiped out all human life except for a Greek guy named Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. After Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulate the earth, Ovid starts talking about various strange occurrences involving gods, demigods, and mortals, all centering on moments of transformation from one physical state to another. In theory, these stories follow each other in time, though in practice it gets more complicated, as there are lots of flashbacks and flashbacks-within-flashbacks. This sounds confusing, but is actually really cool n fun to read. In fact, that is what makes it really cool n fun to read. It reminds me of SAMAN by the Indonesian favorite writer of mine, Ayu Utami. It goes back and forth like crazy :) . And that's why I like composing characters from M : I can just write short pieces from any page of the book. Although there are sections, like the creation of the world, which sounds as a whole orchestra with many brass instruments in it. Maybe I'll do it when I get a commission to do an orchestral work next time. .............................................................................................................................................. Ovid himself, born Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18) , was educated in law, and he insisted that his older brother who died young (and also educated in law) had a greater gift for eloquence. Oh you can just google Ovid to know more about him. Anyway, M keeps fascinating me, and in fact there is just one underlying theme throughout the whole 15 books, which is exactly the title, which I would translate into "everything changes". M captures and engages the reader because of, not in spite of, its size and scope. All humans here are transformed into stones, gods, animals etc. etc. In fact, just like real modern life. Nobody is who (s)he is. Life is beautiful because of, not in spite of, all the tragedies happening in it.