Description
Aphrodíte represents the planet Venus and is scored for Japanese mouthorgan (shō) and string sextet. The work consists of fifteen consecutive sections, the first being an otherworldly approach (kefáli), and the last one being an evaporating departure (ourá). In between we follow thirteen orbits (trochiá): a cosmic observation of the ‘pentagram of Venus’, the apparent path of the planet as observed from Earth.
The successive conjunctions of Venus repeat with an orbital resonance of 13:8, meaning Earth orbits eight times for every thirteen orbits of Venus. The pentagram is sometimes referred to as the petals of Venus due to the path’s visual similarity to a flower.
In an ideal performance the members of the sextet are positioned in a circular space, facing inwards, with the shō in its centre, and the audience all around them in an amphitheatre setting. At the end of the coda, each member of the string sextet walks offstage, one after the other, whilst performing an ostinato, leaving the shō behind, all by itself.
