Description
Seléne consists of five main sections, each four minutes in duration, depicting a predominantly monochrome sky, with in its centre the consecutive lunar phases (as seen from Earth): starting at the obscured New Moon, step by step transforming, from a multi-textured Half Moon to a bright polyphonic Full Moon, then back again to the original starting point. The shorter sections in between, each sixty seconds long, represent the intermediate phases.
In an ideal performance the members of the quartet are positioned in a circular space, facing inwards, with the audience all around them in an amphitheatre setting. The cello is the first to split off and rotate outwards, personifying the first glimpse of moonlight (Waxing Crescent). The viola joins when we reach First Quarter, then the second violin (Waxing Gibbous), and midway the first violin (Full Moon). This process is then reversed until a New Moon is, yet again, nowhere to be seen.
