Isabella Rahme

“Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus…”

(Hesiod – Theogony)

This work was inspired by these lines from Hesiod’s text Theogony, focusing on the idea of the gradual formation of Earth out of Chaos. Leaning into the idea of Chaos to be a “shapeless mass” illustrated by a widely voiced chord, with the gradual turn to lush polyphonic lines to represent the creation of Earth and its beautiful yet wild nature. The piece is intended to function as a prelude to further movements that will explore later ideas in the vast text that is Theogony, thus the ending of the piece feeling like an unanswered question – it is only the start of the creation myth.