(1996)
for mixed choir a cappella
Duration : 15' 25"
TOV006c
Maija Einfelde's extended choral work At the Edge of the Earth was composed in 1996, and
first performed by the Latvian Radio Chamber Singers conducted by Kaspars
Putnins at the Festival of New Latvian Choral Music. In 1997 it won First
Prize at the International Competition organized by the Barlow Foundation,
USA, bringing her name to international prominence. A recording by the
Latvian group was issued in 1999 (Latvijas Radio CD 033).
At the Edge of the Earth is in four sections, based on two short passages
from the play Prometheus Bound by the 5th-century Greek dramatist Aeschylus.
Prometheus, one of the gods but also a son of Earth, felt sympathy for
mankind, and so he stole fire from heaven and gave it to mankind as a gift.
This made Zeus, the god of gods, (who had been planning to do away with
mankind and replace it with a superior race) very angry and jealous. So he
has ordered Hephaestus – the god of Fire – to take Prometheus to the top of
a mountain and chain him to a rock. Thunder and lightning will split the
rock and bury Prometheus underground – where by day an eagle will rip his
flesh and eat his liver, and by night the liver will grow back again, so
that the torture can be renewed. The first two sections are based on the
opening of the play as two servants of Zeus – Strength and Virtue – drag
Prometheus to the rock and remind Hephaestus of his orders. The third
section follows attacca, but we are now right at the end of the play:
Prometheus addresses a prayer to his mother, the Earth. The fourth section
follows, as thunder and lightning are about to begin.