LAURENT
METTRAUX
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for orchestra,
M.603 (1999)
After the 34th
chapter of the Hell,
of the Divine
Comedy by Dante
LISTEN TO THE EXCERPT :
Interpretation :
Berner Symphonie
Orchester,
conducted by Luca Pfaff
Broadcasted by the Swiss
Radio DRS
This work has been ordered by the Pro Helvetia
Foundation for the 100th Festival of Swiss Musicians (Swiss
Musicians Association). The excerpt is taken from the broadcasting of the
work’s first performance, on September 2nd, 2000, in St.Moritz.
Argument
The Cocytus, 9th and last circle of Hell, is
according to Dante a frozen lake where the traitors are plunged.
In the 4th
area of the lake are to be found those having been traitors towards their
benefactors, completely paralyzed in the transparent ice.
Immense and
emerging partly of the lake, the emperor of the realm of pains, Lucifer, aged
and hideous, crushing a traitor in each of the mouths of his triple face, waves
his 6 bat wings, whose icy wind fills the whole Cocytus.
Laurent
Mettraux