Orfeus: to Hell and Back (2025)

When the Orpheus Sinfonia commissioned this cello concerto from me, it didn’t take me long to imagine how inspirational it would be to tell the love story of Greek mythology’s poet, prophet and legendary musician of the same name, with the cello soloist as the protagonist. I have renamed him and his nymph lover with the Ancient Greek spellings Orféüs and Eürüdikē.

The piece draws inspiration from Ancient Greek music which was, by all accounts, very dramatic. Orfeus is said to have had the most beautiful singing voice and, as the sound of the cello is often described as being the closest instrumental sound to a human voice, I have given the cello operatic lines, but also pizzicato (plucked) for Orfeus’s lyre (small harp). The nymph Eurudike is portrayed by panpipes, imitated by the piccolo and flute. Within the orchestra, the oboes and clarinets imitate the aulos (two pipes with one mouthpiece, playing a fourth apart) and we have some authentic percussion, such as krotale (finger cymbals) and clappers.

The piece opens with Orfeus (cello) and the nymph Eurudike (piccolo/flute) singing each other’s names (as they continue to do throughout the piece) rapturously. This leads to a dance to celebrate their marriage, in the Dorian mode, which was often used in love songs, and with the jaunty Ionic rhythm, whose use ranged from religious hymns to erotic songs. We also move into the Aeolian mode – which was considered ‘relaxed’. However, their happiness is short-lived when Eurudike receives a fatal snakebite. Orfeus wails her name in anguish, panicking whilst she disappears downwards to the Underworld. Here I use the sinuous Mixolydian mode (often used for tragedy) and the Dochmiac rhythm (taken from Greek Tragedy verse), which is always ‘urgent’ or ‘emotional’. Its compound time (3+5/8) often incorporates unexpected long beats to throw the listener further.

Devastated, Orfeus travels to the land of the dead to retrieve Eurudike. The orchestral texture is murky and threatening – rolling bass drum and pitch-bending timpani set the scene. Orfeus calls out ‘Eurudike’ but to no answer. Murky swirling water emanates from the lower instruments as he charms, with his lyre and beautiful singing voice, the grim ferryman Charon into carrying him across the River Styx. Reaching his destination. Eurudike appears, darker now in the lower flutes and unreachable, from a balcony above the orchestra.

Orfeus’s exquisite music-making so moves the rulers of the underworld that they agree to let Eurudike return with him to the Upper World. The lovers are reunited in a romantic passage that still has elements of the underworld lurking below it. The one condition is that Orfeus must lead the way and not look back at Eurudike until they are back in the world of the living.

As they are about to emerge into the light, Eurudike is quiet for a while and Orfeus can’t resist turning around to see if she’s still there. He turns to look and, at that instant, she is snatched away back into the underworld forever.

The whole orchestra laments with Orfeus as he returns to the Upper World alone and then dies of a broken heart. However, on his final low B flat exhalation, his tone turns from croaky despair to something more beautiful as he hears Eurudike calling to him. The piece ends joyously, back in the Dorian mode, as his soul is reunited with Eurudike’s in the underworld. The wedding dance is now warmer and more serene in the knowledge that now they really will be together forever.

I am deeply grateful to the Orpheus Sinfonia for not only commissioning me but also for giving me the opportunity to work with its principals during the creative process. Also, to the soloist Jonathan Swensen who has inspired me throughout. Finally, I couldn’t have done this without the late great Martin L. West’s Ancient Greek Music (published by Clarendon Paperbacks).

Roxanna Panufnik, 23 January 2026