Description
Actaeon (Clausula IV) (2011) for solo cello was written for Diana Golden. It is the fourth work in a
set of brief solo cello pieces that all explore the same musical material from different perspectives.
Clausula (noun, Latin) – an ornamented cadence especially in early Renaissance music
The work is flexible and lyric—gradually expanding and contracting its basic musical material within
a passionate discourse.
The Greek myth of Actaeon has numerous variants. In the most well known version (as told by the
poet Kallimachos), the goddess Artemis was bathing in the forest when the hunter
Actaeon mistakenly came across her. Transfixed by her supernal beauty, he gaped, whereupon the
goddess transformed him into a stag, lest he speak to anyone of what he had seen. The now-cervine
Actaeon was then torn to pieces by his hunting dogs. This piece does not attempt to portray the
myth programmatically. Rather, it explores musically the transformed Actaeon’s internal emotional
state following his encounter with the goddess.