The present work is an adaption, for concert purposes, of the orchestral prelude to my opera Odysseus. The opera is the first in a trilogy that tells of Odysseus's ten-year voyage home to Ithaca and his wife Penelope after the Trojan War. The opera opens at the point where his seven-year sojourn on the island of Ogygia is about to end.

The opera [...] addresses and dramatises a common human challenge and its resolution, and, musically speaking, is characterised by a process that can be identified as symphonic. The Prelude to the opera establishes the symphonic context and, at the same time, tells the audience that there is the will to address the challenge that is presented but without predicting the outcome. The form of the Prelude in fact derives its validity from a natural sequence of desires: to summon the will, to test it by exposing it to inimical forces, and to show that those forces do not intimidate the will. With this moral impetus in place, the play of the opera can be positively anticipated, and can proceed dramatically.

- Robin Walker

Todmorden, 6 August 2011