Cyprus: First Impressions

We landed in the evening,
circling slowly down
over small, gleaming jewels
nestled in the shadowy patch
of black velvet flung carelessly
on the iridescent, undulating sea…

A long-standing wish to write something for alto flute was
realized thanks to this commission from the international
music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota. Fresh from a trip to
Cyprus, I decided to make use of some of the ideas and
materials that I had collected while there. One can hear
part of the muezzin’s call from a minaret in the Turkish
quarter of Nicosia, the cry of a fruit vendor in the old city,
and fragments of the traditional Greek Cypriot wedding
song. The dance section is in the Greek style, including
the accompaniment figure of dotted eighth, sixteenth, and
two eighths. The mood of the beginning and end is
contemplative, reflecting on the seemingly intractable
problem of a politically divided country.

I am most grateful to Sigma Alpha Iota for this commission, and to Professor Theofanis G. Stavrou and the InterUniversity Research Committee on Cyprus for their additional support.