Composition database

This is the Composition Database of BMC, which includes information about works by composers that are either Hungarian or Hungarian by origin or live in Hungary.

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Title of the work

Sirens´ Song

Composer
Eötvös Péter
Original / Hungarian title
Sirens´ Song
Foreign language / English title
Sirens´ Song
Subtitle
For orchestra
Year of composition
2020
Type
Symphony orchestra
Instrumentation
3 fl., 3 ob., 3 cl., 3 fg. - 2 cor., 2 tr., 2 trb. - perc. (2 esec.) - strings: 14 vl. 1, 12 vl. 2, 10 vla., 8 vlc., 6 cb. (or 12 vl. 1, 10 vl. 2, 8 vla., 6 vlc., 4 cb.)
Duration
12 min
Movements, parts
One movement
Commissioned by
Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Sinfonieorchester Basel
Premiere information
25 March 2021, Concert "World Famous Hungarians", Live Online Broadcast, Kodály Center, Pécs, Hungary; Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra, Péter Eötvös (cond.)
Publisher / Source
MS
Remarks, other info
For millennia, sirens – killer birds with women’s heads – have been the most famous singers in mythology. My composition “Sirens’ song” was inspired by three authors. According to Homer, the sirens seduced sailors with their bewitching song and then killed them. Ulysses cautiously puts wax in his ears, so that he can lay eyes on but cannot hear them. Kafka suggests that the sirens cunningly fooled Ulysses because they refused to sing for him, anyway. The sirens are the muses of the underworld. Non only Joyce did they seduce but also all composers who have tried to make audible what Ulysses could never hear. /Peter Eötvös/