THE NYMPHS ARE DEPARTED

"...but for my money, the real bull’s eye is Sebastian Currier’s setting of T. S. Eliot’s “The Nymphs Have Departed” in response to Debussy-Louÿs’s “Le tombeau des Naïades.” This piece not only suggests the death of mythologies in a modern age (referring to the same mythological being as the original), but the music is plaintive, chant-like, somber, almost archaic, in a way that seems a direct descendant of Debussy without quoting him."

- Fanfare Magazine

                                            Program Note

Written for Mary Nessinger and Jeanne Golan as part of a project where various composers respond to specific songs from cycles of Berg and Debussy. Premiered at the National Arts Club, New York City, November, 2006. The text is an excerpt from Fire Sermon from Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. Written as a response to Debussy's Death of the Niaads. 

Scoring
for high voice and piano

Music Text  
T.S. Elliott (E)