Marsyas, for piano

Marsyas is a character from Greek mythology. A master of the aulos, he was the adversary of the lyre-playing Apollo. When Apollo ordered musicians to accompany themselves when singing, Marsyas' fate was sealed. Neuwirth uses Marsyas as a synonym for aspects excluded from our present-day culture - art becoming passionate, intense and emotional - and, at the same time, formally falls back on the huge Marsyas sculpture by the Indian artist Anish Kapoor: its organic, coiled form, spiral curves and gigantic cup-shaped openings, transferred to the excessive tonal language typical of Neuwirth.