Edward Cowie’s Glaukopis

Edward writes:

‘Glaukopis, the Homeric name for the goddess Athene but also probably derived from a classical Greek phrase for ‘owl-faced’ or ‘owl-eyed’, is described as ‘Five atmospheric Nocturnes for Athena’. It ‘places’ five different species of European and British owls in their own typical dusk and nocturnal habitats. These may be dark and brooding woods; sparse and remote moorland; jade and black shaded conifer forest or the open pastures of farmland fields and meadows.’

Athene noctua – Little Owl

Strix aluco – Tawny Owl

Asio flameus – Short-eared Owl

Asio otus – Long-eared Owl

Tyto alba – Barn Owl

The dedication of this collection of ‘owl pieces’ to Athena is not just historically and mythologically appropriate, but speaks directly to what I most appreciate and respond to in Edward’s music. (That it is co-dedicated to me is icing on the cake!) 

The association of Athena with the Little Owl (Athene noctua – the first of the set) belongs to the ancients, and because of it the owl has been symbolically linked throughout our history with knowledge and wisdom (though not obviously with warfare and craft, Athena’s other potent connections). There is uncertainty about the way(s) in which this association developed, but it has become a powerful metaphor, as can be gauged by the appearance of one of the most famous, evocative and suggestively poetic passages of 19th-century philosophy on the Wikipedia page for Athena’s owl:

Philosophy, as the thought of the world, does not appear until reality has completed its formative process, and made itself ready. History thus corroborates the teaching of the conception that only in the maturity of reality does the ideal appear as counterpart to the real, apprehends the real world in its substance, and shapes it into an intellectual kingdom. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, one form of life has become old, and by means of grey it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known. The owl of Minerva[1] takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering.

G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1820), "Preface"; translated by S W Dyde (1896)

The idea that ‘knowledge’ comes only at the end of a process strikes me as peculiarly apposite for this piece: I feel it as keenly as a listener as I do as a performer. In English, we use a borrowed French word, première, to describe the first performance of a piece of music, but French uses a much more philosophically potent formulation, capturing the idea that the music does not exist – as music[2] – until it is performed: création. Literally, of course, this can be applied to any piece of music, but whereas some pieces reveal themselves extensively during the process of making, others retain their mystery until they are performed with an audience (and indeed afterwards). It is not an uncommon experience for the Kreutzer Quartet to walk off stage after a first performance talking to one another with surprise at what has just been ‘discovered’, despite the hours of rehearsal beforehand. Of all of the music I have played I think this is perhaps most true of Edward’s, and it is especially so for Glaukopis.

Why might this be the case? Partly it is in the essence of Edward’s specific approach to nature portraits that they dissolve unpredictably between different kinds of transcription of actual sounds (‘songs’, calls, cries, and other sounds of the natural world, including flapping, scratching, wind noise etc.) and other kinds of music that capture/suggest environments or habitats, and/or the psychology of interactions with them. Beginning work on Glaukopis it is easy to observe a specific owl call, for example, but as one spends time in the music’s world, the relationships between the various elements become stranger and richer, and even the calls no longer seem to be ‘transcriptions’ but something with an identity almost entirely their own. It is not uncommon to listen back for the first time to a recording I have made and to be surprised by how the music feels, even though I have physically experienced the performance, but here I was struck by a sensuous mystery I did not really expect.

That sensuousness is intimately connected with feeling for the instrument. This is undoubtedly difficult music from a technical perspective, but its difficulty is of what I might playfully describe as the ‘right kind’. Edward knows the feeling of a violin in his hands, and by extension the cello. Nothing is a ‘reach’ or a ‘struggle’ unless those qualities are somehow ideally captured in the material itself, so the search for technical strategies for tackling the physical challenges is always a hunt for expressive discoveries rather than engineering solutions. Those discoveries are still happening at the moment of realisation, and it is only listening back that I am able to recognise what has happened. The next performances will also bring new discoveries, and I hope that something of the sensitive mystery of these owls taking flight ‘only when the shades of night are gathering’ is present here in a way that captures your imagination too.

[1] Although Athena is not directly equivalent with the Roman goddess Minerva, she is at the core of a syncretic fusion.

[2] Perhaps we might see in this a distinctively ‘Athenian’ fusion of knowledge and craft?