Agamemnon Suite (2015)

Listen

From the 1st movement: Smoke Marks Out

From the 2nd movement: A Woman Abandoned

From the 3rd movement: Troy is Fallen

Program Notes

Agamemnon, leader of the Greek armies in the Trojan War, conquers and sacks the city of Troy after ten years of conflict. He returns triumphantly to Greece, expecting a welcome befitting his great victory. Instead, he is murdered by his wife, Queen Klytemnestra, who has been plotting his assassination in collusion with her lover, Aegisthus (Agamemnon’s cousin). These events take place in Agamemnon, the first of a cycle of three ancient Greek tragedies, together known as the Oresteia, by Aeschylus.

Composers frequently create concert suites from their stage works, in part to allow the music to be heard in a setting other than the theater. Suites present the “highlights” of a work in a condensed format which can still give a fair picture of the larger piece. I have previously created concert works from my operas: Klytemnestra Songs, for example, is a cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano (or chamber ensemble) based on music from Klytemnestra’s role in Agamemnon; Mother’s Blood is a suite for chorus and instrumental ensemble based on music from the third opera of the cycle, The Furies (2006). I had wanted to create an orchestral suite from Agamemnon for some time; and so when Maestro Tartaglione invited me to present a piece for the Catholic University of American Symphony Orchestra, the opportunity arrived.

Agamemnon Suite is in three movements with a prologue and short interlude, equaling just under ten minutes in duration. The first movement, “King Agamemnon Triumphant,” depicts the king’s return to his home of Argos. The chorus’ acclamations of “Hail, Agamemnon!” comprise the opening bars.  Agamemnon’s fast, violent aria, “Smoke Marks out the Conquered City,” follows immediately.  Agamemnon, in this aria, describes the destruction which his armies wrought during the sack of the enemy’s city, referring to the famed Trojan horse, which “leapt over the walls of Troy/and licked the tyrant’s blood” (the tyrant is Priam, King of Troy.) The next movement, “Queen Klytemnestra Welcomes the King,” is a lyrical aria in the tradition of 19th-century grand opera in which the Queen welcomes her longed-for partner home after protracted, painful separation. However, Klytemnestra’s speech, lovely as it may seem, is a façade: she is delivering a speech of welcome for her husband in front of the assembled citizens of Argos, and so presents her lies accordingly. This duality lends an edge to the aria which it otherwise would not have were the character entirely sincere.

A brief interlude, entitled “Foreboding,” reprises the “Hail, Agamemnon!” music of the first movement, and leads directly into the finale, “Troy is Fallen. This is another Klytemnestra aria, which takes place earlier in the opera than do the events of movements 1 and 2. In this aria, Klytemnestra – similarly to Agamemnon in his own aria – speaks of Troy’s destruction, although in her case the images are products of imagination rather than witnessed events. The musical style of this movement is frenetic, an ecstatic dance inspired by Greek folk music, with asymmetrical meters, modal scales and drones evoking the sound-world of the Balkans. The aria’s brisk conclusion creates a powerful ending for the suite.

—Andrew Earle Simpson