At the Waters of Oblivion
1.1.1.1-1.1.1.0-1pc.-1.0.1.1.1 | 2015, rev. 2021 | 12'
Past Performances:
Eastman Composers’ Sinfonietta, cond. Austin Chanu. Kilbourne Hall, Eastman, Mar. 25, 2021.
First version read by Indiana University New Music Ensemble, cond. David Dzubay. Indiana University, Aug. 31, 2015.
The River Lethe, one of the five rivers of the underworld, is the river of forgetting and of oblivion in Ancient Greek Mythology. The souls of the dead drank from the river, and once they had forgotten their past lives, they were ready to be reincarnated.
The souls that throng the flood
Are those to whom, by fate, are other bodies ow'd:
In Lethe's lake they long oblivion taste,
Of future life secure, forgetful of the past."
- Virgil: Aeneid, translated by Dryden
