It happened a long time ago. Soon after the titan Prometheus gave people fire, the daughter of Latona and Zeus, the goddess of the hunt — Artemis, gave the brave hunters a spear and a bow with arrows, and the goddess of fertility, Demeter, taught people about agriculture. Centaurs roamed the wild forests, and rivers and lakes were inhabited by Nereids. In every river and in every mountain there lived its own god and harmony in nature reigned.
Once upon a time nymphs and Nereids, centaurs, gods of forests and rivers gathered in a forest glade, and then the god Archer Apollo himself descended to them to please his friends with his play on the cithara. And Apollo's playing was so beautiful that even the forest god Pan put aside his flute. The gods were delighted with the game of Apollo and had no equal to him in this art.
Once a son was born to a friend of Apollo Oeagrus — god of river, and muse Callione. The boy was named Orpheus. The kid was unusually musical and one day, noticing this, Apollo presented him with his golden cithara. Apollo's hopes were justified. Orpheus became a great singer, and in playing the cithara he surpassed even the arrow god himself. But the soul of the young man was looking not only for music. He was attracted by long journeys and great deeds. Therefore, together with the brave Jason and fifty more brave Argonauts, he goes to Colchis for the Golden Fleece on the ship Argo. Quite a few trials fell to his lot in this campaign. And a few years later, the strengthened and matured Orpheus returned to his native Thrace as a hero and victor.
It was then that he met his only and beloved Eurydice. The divinely beautiful nymph was as delicate and graceful in soul as the most touching songs of Orpheus. Orpheus loved her dearly, dedicated his new songs to her, and they were a wonderful, seemingly inseparable couple. But all happiness comes to an end sooner or later.
Orpheus's happiness did not last long. Once in the forest, Eurydice accidentally stepped on a sleeping emea and died from it’s bite. There was no limit to the grief of Orpheus. He could not come to terms with the loss of his beloved. He decided to ask the great god of the underworld Hades to return Eurydice to him and set off on a long journey. Orpheus descended through the gloomy cave of Tenara to the banks of the sacred river Styx. Only the harsh Charon could transfer Orpheus across the river to the kingdom of shadows, but he flatly refused. You cannot enter the camp of the dead alive and you cannot leave the kingdom of Hades for the dead. But the great singer struck the strings of the cithara, sang about his love for Eurydice, about loneliness and sadness. And old Charon let Orpheus into his boat and transported him to the other side of the Styx River. Great Hades heed the request of Orpheus too. He delivered the soul of Eurydice from his kingdom, but demanded that Orpheus fulfill one condition: returning from the kingdom of the dead to the world of the living, following the god Hermes through the cave of Tenara, Orpheus must look only forward. To look back at the following Eurydice means to lose her forever. And they hit the road. But the road back is hard. A narrow path rises steeply upward. The swift Hermes rushes forward. Orpheus can barely keep up with him. And somewhere behind is Eurydice. Has she lagged behind? Did she get lost in the darkness of the cave? And, when the exit from the dungeon was already visible, Orpheus could not resist, he looked back...
Sometimes, remembering that little part of my life lived, I feel like Orpheus. No, I did not sail on the Argo ship to distant countries, did not descend into the kingdom of the dead, but at one time I had to look back and I, like Orpheus, did not return the time, did not return the lost ... And only one thing sometimes makes me continue my flight — the ability to look ahead, to watch the future being born.
Yours Andrey Klimkovsky
About constellation
The Lyra constellation occupies a very small area on the celestial sphere and it would be completely inconspicuous if it were not for the blue pearl — one of the brightest stars in the earth's sky — Vega. Until recently, Vega was considered the brightest star in the northern hemisphere, but in recent years, after changes in the photometric standard, it gave up to orange Arcturus. Nevertheless, it still flares up first in the earthly skies immediately after sunset. (Do not confuse it with Venus — not a star, but a planet. During favorable periods of evening visibility, Venus can be seen even before the sun sets.)
On summer nights, Vega with its small but very beautiful constellation rises almost to the zenith and is perfectly visible all night. To find the constellation Lyra, you do not need a star map at all. Just look up. It is noteworthy that Lyra never sets in our latitudes. Within this constellation, you can find a number of interesting astronomical objects accessible to observation both with a small telescope and with the naked eye. The star of ε Lyra seems to keen-sighted people not single, but double. Check your eyesight. But already in a small telescope, you can find out that each star in this pair also consists of two twin stars. The binary stars η and ζ of this constellation are just as beautiful. The β Lyrae star is an eclipsing binary, that is, one star in this pair periodically obscures another — brighter one, and it may seem to the terrestrial observer that the asterisk is winking. This happens approximately once every two weeks.
The most mysterious object of the constellation Lyra is the planetary "Ring" Nebula (M 57), which represents the remnant of a dying star. However, this star is still "alive", but is visible only in large telescopes.
credits
released July 14, 1999
Andrey Klimkovsky: album idea, music, arrangement, performance. Except track #1: Suite #3 in D-major — «Air»: music by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Andrey Klimkovsky is one of leading russian composers working in the electronic musical space. Images creating by him -
"Music of Celestial Spheres", "Starry Sky", "ALEALA" и "DreamOcean" - stayed the classics of the genre, received popularity as in Russia, and abroad....more
Designed to be played on shuffle, Eluvium offers an ever-changing yet seamless listening experience over 23 tracks. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 10, 2017
