Erebus

  • 7:00
  • 2003
  • Organ
Published by Monica Houghton Music Company - Request performance materials.
      Erebus - Frances Nobert, organ, Pasadena Presbyterian Church
Mount Erebus

 

Performances

Premiere: Karel Paukert, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, August 27, 2003

Karel Paukert, for the AKI Festival of New Music, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, November 2, 2003

Dr. Frances Nobert, for the International Alliance of Women in Music, Pasadena Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, California, June 6, 2004

Karel Paukert, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, December 2004

Karel Paukert, Cathedral of St. Bavo, Ghent, Belgium,  August 11, 2005

Karel Paukert, AGO Lincoln Organ Showcase, Lincoln, Nebraska, February 4, 2007

Karel Paukert,  St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, March 11, 2007

Program Note

This work was composed at the request of  Karel Paukert and was conceived as a tribute to my late brother, John Greenleaf Houghton.

John was a geographer and a mountaineer. In a cruelly ironic twist of fate, he was killed at the age of 39, while on a sightseeing flight to Antarctica. The plane crashed into Mount Erebus, killing everyone on board.

In Greek mythology, Erebus was the son of Chaos, and the father of Aether (brightness) and Hemera (day). Erebus and his sister Nyx (night) were also said to be the parents of Eros, the god of love, and of Charon, the ferryman at the River Styx. Often, Erebus is referred to simply as “the place of shadows.”

Mount Erebus was so named by the British explorer, James Clark Ross, who discovered it in 1840. The world’s southernmost volcano, Mount Erebus is situated on Ross Island, adjacent to McMurdo Sound, on the New Zealand side of Antarctica. The mountain rises directly from the sea to an astonishing altitude of 12,444 feet, where, on a clear day, a plume of smoke can be seen emanating from its summit.

My brother had both a professional interest in, and a personal love of, mountains. I remember visiting him once when he was in college–and living in a house filled with organ pipes! It seems one of his roommates had an unusual hobby. I have tried to write a piece of music that will do honor to my brother’s memory, and at the same time convey a sense of the awe and majesty that is characteristic of such a great mountain as the one that took him away from us.

Discography

Karel Paukert, Aubade: Organ Music by Ohio Composers, Cleveland Museum of Art,
Azica (ACD 71229) “Erebus”