Domine: Symphony #2 - First movement: Invocation - Program Notes
On an island made of erupting volcanic fire in the middle of a vast, stormy frozen lake in the center of the world there dwelled Grandfather Time, named Chronos, and his ancient wife, Coronis the Crone of Crows, or She-Who-Sees-Where-He-Goes, in the language the sacred hierophantic bards. They have a daughter and a son who are set by their parents to govern the Earth in alternating seasons and between them balance the evil onslaughts of Autumn degeneration, cruel Winter and death with the regeneration of rebirth brought in by Spring and the abundance of harvest in the late Summer.
Their daughter is called Xystalwynde, the White-haired Witch of the Winter Snows, who changes her shape with the waxing and waning of the moon, dwells high up in rocky crags where eagles dare not nest, and who rides on the winged black spectral horse called Night Mare. With her eyes that flash with blue flame and her lips red as rowanberries, she is the most beautiful woman in creation, but the most intemperate and prone to anger and violence, especially when she seeks to wreak vengeance. Some have heard her cries by night on baleful winds, a sound that causes the skin to crawl, the eyes to water, hair to stand on end, sending shivers of fear down the spine, freezing motionless those who witness her presence into a paralysis of fear. The brother of Xystalwynde is the Sun God, who for all his apparent brilliance acts only in darkest mystery. He is master of mystery, wisdom, and is sagacious, deliberate and well-tempered in all things. His true name is not known, he is referred to only in silent, reverent meditation. He appears in the flesh as the ugliest man in existence, bent of frame and form into a shape most unnatural. He rides the chariot of the sun, none can survive the overpoweringly hideous sight of his celestial procession.
The music of the Invocation calls upon these entities to hear the entreaties of the supplicant masses, and to prepare for the reenactment of the myth of the Sun King, whose life and subsequent sacrifice is executed to placate the wrath of the Moon Goddess, and whose blood fertilizes the Earth in the name of the Sun God to bring beneficent providence into the world of mortal men.
