Casken, John: Amarantos

for chamber orchestra

The Greek word ’amarantos’ means ‘everlasting’ or ‘unfading’, and the title was suggested by the amaranthine flowers in E.E.Cummings’ sonnet ’this is the garden’, where the flowers stand ’enraptured’ when, ’in other lands … and on Death’s blade lie many a flower curled’. Another important image is that of ’pursed lips [blowing] upon cool flutes within wide glooms’, a remarkable idea that was responsible for the work’s coda in which the alto flute plays a prominent role. John Casken