Echo’s Lament draws on the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus as told by Ovid in Metamorphoses. Echo, cursed to repeat only the words spoken by others, falls in love with Narcissus. When he becomes separated from his companions in the forest, he calls into the distance and hears Echo answer him.

Echo emerges and attempts to embrace Narcissus, but he rejects her. Devastated, she withdraws into the wilderness and gradually wastes away until nothing remains of her except her voice, condemned to continue repeating the words of others.

The work was commissioned in celebration of the Curtis Institute of Music’s centennial. As an alumnus, I wanted to write a piece that would honor the institution while exploring both the technical range of the soloist and the expressive possibilities of the French horn.

The music unfolds in three connected sections arranged in a slow–fast–slow design. The outer sections emphasize the horn’s natural harmonic series and use a four-note musical cryptogram derived from the name Curtis: Cu, R, Ti, and S—C, D, B, and E-flat. The central section introduces a lilting dance, incorporates the same cryptogram, and moves rapidly between open and stopped horn.

As a tribute to the Curtis Institute’s century of service to its students and community, and as an homage to the timeless myth that inspired it, I hope Echo’s Lament will continue to reverberate and echo in the memory of its listeners.

—SC