Score and parts available on special sale from the hire library

The Ithaca Suite is conceived as a sequence of psychological portraits inspired by the figures Odysseus encounters or is reunited with upon his return to Ithaca after his long journey. It is through their recognition of him that his destiny is ultimately fulfilled. Each movement explores an inner world, translating character, memory, and transformation into sound.

Proci - The Suitors (string quartet)
The Suitors are the arrogant men who seek to usurp Odysseus’ throne and court Penelope. Chief among them is Antinous, whose name signifies a hostile mind, described by Homer as worse than a dog. Their presence is rendered through asymmetric accents and rigid, aggressive rhythms that are menacing, violent, and unrelenting. Within this texture, the first violin reflects Penelope’s inner state, while the cello embodies Odysseus, disguised as a beggar and subjected to humiliation. A polyrhythmic structure underpins the movement. The violin and cello unfold long melodic lines in 3/4, while the other instruments, representing the Suitors, insist in 4/4, highlighting the irreconcilable divide between nobility and brutality.

Telemachus  - Son of Odysseus (violin and piano)
Telemachus undergoes his own transformation, a miniature Odyssey. He departs as a boy and returns a man, called to adventure by Athena and compelled to seek news of his father across the sea. This journey is both external and internal, shaped by courage, doubt, and awakening identity. The music captures his youthful fervor through frenetic rhythms and incandescent melodic lines shared between violin and piano. A sense of restless energy gradually gives way to resolution, as his destiny comes into focus.

Eumaeus - The Swineherd (alto saxophone)
Eumaeus represents loyalty, humility, and endurance. He is the one who receives Odysseus with compassion upon his return, offering care and understanding despite his own suffering under the oppression of the Suitors. His voice emerges as a solitary, contemplative melody for alto saxophone, unfolding in spacious phrases. Silence becomes part of the musical language, evoking the distant sound of the sea, the wind, and the solitude of the island. The line grows toward an almost painful intensity before dissolving into fragmented echoes and fading into silence.

Penelopeia - Wife of Odysseus (piano solo)
Penelope stands at the gravitational center of the Odyssey. She is Ithaca itself, the still point toward which all journeys return. While Odysseus resists through action, Penelope resists through endurance, weaving and unwinding her loom to delay the Suitors and suspend time. Her music forms the central movement of the Suite. An undulating accompaniment evokes a calm sea at dusk, suggesting her constant gaze toward the horizon. The melody oscillates between longing and hope and never surrenders. A second idea represents the act of weaving. When later reversed, it becomes unweaving, a symbolic gesture through which time itself is held in suspension until destiny is fulfilled.

Eurycleia - The Nurse (soprano saxophone and piano)
Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus by the scar on his body, a mark of identity and memory. She embodies care, tenderness, and the wisdom of touch. The music reflects this intimate recognition through a gentle, maternal character. Fragmented, playful motifs evoke flashes of memory such as childhood moments, gestures of affection, and shared histories. In this movement, identity emerges through vulnerability and through the marks that define us.

Laertes-  Father of Odysseus (cello and piano)
Laertes, aged and withdrawn, lives in quiet resignation, stripped of his former identity and hope. His world is reduced to the care of his orchard and the slow passage of time. The music, shaped like a Baroque aria, carries a dotted rhythm suggestive of weeping. The piano’s heavy, grounded motion mirrors the steps of an old man. At the moment of recognition, the music transforms. The opening material returns in the relative major, expanding into a lyrical, flowing line reminiscent of Schubertian song. Grief gives way to overwhelming joy.

Pax Athenae - The Peace of Athena (piano and string quartet)
The Suite concludes with the intervention of the divine. In Homer’s vision, only the gods can restore peace among men and break the cycle of violence and vengeance. Pax Athenae embodies this final reconciliation with a luminous and serene conclusion in which harmony is restored. If Odysseus’ destiny is Penelope, then Ithaca’s destiny is peace. The Suite closes with this image of renewal, of love and peace as the ultimate resolution.