Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, Op. 49, is an unaccompanied piece for solo oboe written by English composer Benjamin Britten. The work was composed in 1951 as a means of relaxation while Britten was working on his opera Billy Budd. It was written for oboist Joy Boughton, a member of the orchestra for the English Opera Group whom Britten admired; Boughton premiered the work at the 1951 Aldeburgh Festival on 14 June 1951 in an outdoor concert at the Thorpeness Meare. Since its premiere, Six Metamorphoses has come to be regarded as a staple of oboe literature and one of the most significant works for solo woodwind.
Six Metamorphoses is based on the epic poem Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso. The piece is composed of six movements, each drawing from a single narrative of Ovid's poem. The first movement, "Pan", follows the tale of the namesake satyr's attempted rape of the nymph Syrinx. The second movement, "Phaeton", concerns the catastrophic attempt of Helios's son to drive the chariot of the sun. The third movement, "Niobe", concerns a Phrygian queen whose fourteen children are vengefully killed by Apollo and Diana. The fourth movement, "Bacchus", depicts a conventional Bacchic feast. The fifth movement, "Narcissus", depicts how the title character fell in love with his own reflection. The final movement, "Arethusa", tells of the title nymph's flight from an attempted rape by the river-god Alpheus. Britten's score provides a brief epigraph for each movement, in addition to the titles.
The piece is published by Boosey and Hawkes. Its combined six movements last approximately 13 minutes.
History
Composition Britten wrote Six Metamorphoses in the summer of 1951 as a means of relaxation during the composition of his opera, Billy Budd. 1951 was a productive year for the composer, and the opera took up most of his time. Most likely, Britten began composition after the 1 May premiere of an edition of Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas, which the composer had prepared in collaboration with Imogen Holst. Nevertheless, Britten's musical diary entry from 28–29 March contains sketches of what would eventually be the opening of the "Niobe" movement, suggesting that Britten had been thinking about the composition for a while before its premiere.
George Caird argues that the classical influences that inspired Six Metamorphoses were a broad influence on the composer, whose importance was comparable to that of Christian religion. Britten visited similar subject matter throughout his career, including Young Apollo (1939), The Rape of Lucretia (1946), and Phaedra (1975). Caird partially attributes the composer's interest in classical mythology to his lifelong companion, Peter Pears, in addition to literary figures such as W. H. Auden, E. M. Forster, and Hermann Melville, the latter having written the namesake novella that Britten adapted in Billy Budd. Caird specifically observes a fascination with the Apollo, who is referenced in Billy Budd and appears in both the "Phaeton" and "Niobe" myths of Six Metamorphoses. Sotos Djiovanis posits a broader thematic connection between the protagonist of Billy Budd and the characters of Six Metamorphoses, both of whom are subjected to the violence and influence of more powerful beings.
Six Metamorphoses is the last of four pieces featuring solo oboe that Britten wrote throughout his career. His previous entries in the genre include Phantasy Quartet, Op. 2 (1932), Two Insect Pieces (1935), and Temporal Variations (1936). Of these, Six Metamorphoses is the only piece written for unaccompanied oboe, and at the time it was his only work written for a solo instrument other than piano. According to Sheri Lee Mattson, the piece likely influenced Britten's later compositions for solo cello.
Performance
The premiere of the piece took place on 14 June 1951 at 4:30 p.m. on the Meare. The concert was directed by Boris Ord and performed by the Cambridge University Madrigal Society, with Britten's piece accompanying other contemporary compositions as well as Jacobean part songs and English madrigals. Britten specifically composed Six Metamorphoses to be performed by the oboist Joy Boughton, whose playing Britten greatly admired. At the time, Boughton was a member of the orchestra for the English Opera group, which Britten had earlier helped found. The work was originally envisioned as an occasion piece to be performed outside at the Meare at Thorpeness during the Aldeburgh Festival; the outdoor setting was to contribute to the pastoral nature of the music, in which atmospheric sounds from the water, wind, and birds could become part of the music, especially during its frequent pauses. Britten intended for the audience and performers to sit on moving punts. However, Boughton refused out of fear for her personal safety, and performed the piece on the opposite shore from the audience. It may be noted that Boughton performed the piece on a barge two years later; it may also be noted that one of the boats floated away during the concert, carrying the madrigal singers with it, thereby justifying Boughton's fears. The premiere of Britten's piece itself was not without incident either, as the score had to be saved and dried after a gust of wind blew its pages into the water.
Nowhere in the score is it required for Six Metamorphoses to be performed outside. Rather, the piece has usually been performed in indoor concert halls. On one particularly notable occasion, Britten was treated during a trip to the Soviet Union in 1966 to a private ballet performance choreographed to Six Metamorphoses featuring a group of dancers from the Kirov Ballet.
Reception Since its premiere, Six Metamorphoses has received the approval of critics, although some viewed the piece as a curiosity for oboists less important than Britten's major works. Nevertheless, even these critics approved of Britten's ability to showcase the instrument's expressive and technical versatility. Wendel Margrave wrote that Britten's piece was written "skillfully and lovingly" but that the movements comprised "pieces for oboists who are also Britten enthusiasts." Another critic, praising the pieces as "extraordinarily vivid and beautiful musical pictures," wrote that "Britten can do more with one short phrase than most modern composers with a symphony, an in his hands the single instrument hits off each character with perfect musical imagery and understanding."
Nevertheless, Six Metamorphoses has come to be regarded both as one of the most relevant pieces in the oboe repertoire and also as one of the most prominent pieces written for any solo instrument.>
Synopsis Britten's piece draws its program from six mythological episodes told in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Most of the stories that Britten chose involve the physical transformation of one of the characters. As an indication of the programmatic element of the music, Britten includes the following titles and brief descriptions of the movements:
The "Syrinx" narrative appears as a story told by Mercury to Argus within the larger "Io" narrative in Metamorphoses. The story is framed as an aetiological narrative concerning the origin of reed pipes. The nymph Syrinx is a follower of the virgin hunter-goddess Diana and is said to have been successful warding off many suitors and attempts to do the same with Pan. When the latter chases her, Syrinx's sisters save her by turning her into marshy reeds at the banks of the Ladon. Pan finds that his sigh happens to create a sound through the reeds and binds uneven pipes together with wax into an instrument, naming it after Syrinx.
Phaeton's story begins when he seeks out his Apollo in order to prove his mother's claim that the god is his father. Apollo confirms his paternity and, as a gesture of love, swears by the Styx to fulfill any wish Phaeton may desire. When Phaeton wishes to drive his father's sun chariot for a day, Apollo is unable to convince him to retract the wish and cannot take back his promise. Phaeton begins to drive the chariot, but the horses immediately resist his control and rampage about the skies. The constellations are placed out of order and fire is set to all the world, boiling its rivers and creating deserts. The Earth begs Jupiter to take action, and the latter ends the chaos by striking the chariot with lightning. Phaeton falls to the earth as a shooting star, and his burning body is buried by his sister nymphs.
Niobe is the Phrygian queen of Thebes. When the prophetess Manto calls for all the women of Thebes to worship the goddess Latona, Niobe refuses to let them obey. She claims herself to be Latona's superior since she has seven daughters and seven sons, while the goddess has two children. Latona, angry, orders her children Apollo and Diana to make Niobe childless. They obey and kill all Niobe's sons, though the last son begs for his life; after this, Niobe's husband commits suicide. Nevertheless, Niobe gloats that she still has more children than Latona, so Apollo and Diana kill her remaining daughters. Paralyzed by grief, Niobe turns into a statue and is set on a mountaintop by a gust of wind, though the stone continues to weep tears.
There is no particular story in Metamorphoses concerning a traditional Bacchic festival, although the festivals take place in the backdrop of the narrative of Procne and Philomela, and Maenads appear to rend the body of Orpheus after he rejects their advances. Most prominently, Bacchus appears in the story of Pentheus, the young king of Thebes. Attempting to stop the Bacchic festivals, Pentheus eavesdrops on the unknown rites until he is spotted by his mother, Agave, herself a Maenad; in her drunken frenzy, Agave mistakes Pentheus for a boar and tears him to pieces with her sisters.
Narcissus is born the son of the nymph Liriope, who takes the boy to the prophet Tiresias and asks if he will live a long life; to this, Tiresias answers, "If he never knows himself." Years later, Narcissus, now an unusually attractive adolescent, spurns many male and female lovers and admirers, including the nymph Echo. Cursed by the Furies, Narcissus finds an untouched pool of water and falls in love with his own reflection. After attempting to touch and kiss and hear the words of the reflection, he recognizes the image as himself. Maddened, he disrupts the water of the pool until his reflection is no longer visible and melts away until only a flower is left in his place.
The story of Arethusa is embedded within the larger narrative of Pluto's rape of Proserpina, in which Arethusa helps Ceres find her daughter. At the start of the narrative, Arethusa is a nymph of Achaea, where she enjoys hunting. There, she enters the river Alpheus to bathe naked but flees when the god of the river attempts to seduce her. Chased by Alpheus and about to be caught, Arethusa calls to Diana for help; the goddess hides her in a cloud, where she begins to transform into a fountain. When he recognizes the fountain, Alpheus mixes the waters of his stream with Arethusa's waters; after this, Diana carries Arethusa away to the island of Ortygia, where she remains.