Barcarola

The trumpet- and trombone-calls in this boat song were played by the ferryman Charon upon crossing the River Styx. Near the beginning of the piece can be heard briefly in the harps the Eton Boating Song which is sung by the rabble of drunken soldiers in the prostitute scene in my opera We Come to the River. Later, after extended cantilenas, the real Barcarole is played by the solo viola accompanied lightly by flutes and harps. This is the main theme of the work and becomes, therefore, the main focus of the transformation process as well. But other motives presented earlier are also incorporated into this process. Charon’s calls, however, are not affected by this flow. Their occurrances work like posts which have been placed in quicksand and appear to set themselves against the stream as an impediance. The repeated appearance of this call gives the piece a rondo-like form at first glance, yet this later proved to be a deception. In the score, the musical progress is carried out like a journey: the musical material is transformed, changed and developed in the same sense as is the mental process of metamorphosis. Charon’s boat crosses the stream by night and the fragments of memory appear to the traveller as colourful phenomena which flare up on the horizon, on the unfamiliar river bank. When the journey nears its end, the other bank comes into sight: in this moment the confounded traveller recognizes a little island on the horizon, which shines brightly in the morning light; he rubs his eyes in astonishment, blinks, and then he knows: this is Ithaka. – Hans Werner Henze