The Voice of Hades

This duet for bass flute and contrabass recorder comes from my dance-opera Orpheus. 

In this work all characters who are non-human (gods, nymphs, satyr’s etc) are portrayed by instruments as otherworldly forms, separate to our own. In the original production of this work, Hades was portrayed as a contra-bass recorder, and this solo passage was Hades' key moment in the work. 

The solo forms the section of the story where Hades is pondering his answer to Orpheus’ request to have Eurydice returned to him. As he ponders, Demeter (bass flute) chimes in to help convince him to return Eurydice to her lover. Hades allowed this, but with one caveat being that Orpheus cannot look at her during the journey back to the real world.