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Showing posts from February, 2024

The Electra Suite

Who was Electra? Upon getting it into my head to write a suite of music called ‘The Elektra Suite’ or ‘The Electra Suite,’ I decided to read up on Elektra so I could better organize the different movements of this suite. After all, rather than just write six movements, I thought it would be more interesting to kind of thematically link the movements by giving them specific titles and have each movement more or less match the mood of its title. First, I discovered that there were three main Greek plays concerning this character. It was obviously one story but told in three slightly different ways. Electra is the story of a woman who is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Agamemnon goes off to war and Clytemnestra kills him when he returns. Electra gets mad and kills Clytemnestra with help from her brother Orestes. Simple right? Oh no. Agamemnon had sacrificed Elektra’s other sister to have good sailing when he went off to war. Elektra is apparently not upset by this. Electra spe...