ooonnnooommmaaatttaaa ppplllaaannnhhhtttvvvnnn Onomata planêtôn The names of the wanderers An intonation in Greek, Latin, and English, naming all of the planets and moons in our Solar System, for eight-part chorus (SSAATTBB) a cappella Eric Banks Composed for The Esoterics in July 2002 for performance in the concert PLANÊTES. For Anthony and Jamie © 2002 Eric Banks (ASCAP). All rights reserved by the composer. Email: [email protected] Webpage: www.ericbanks.com About this work I was inspired to write this piece after coming across a complete list of moons in our Solar System. I thought it would be fun to compose a work that intones the names of these “wanderers” (or “planêtes,” the ancient Greek adjective used to describe the stars and planets that are not fixed in the heavens). The only texts that I have chosen to include in this composition are the names of the nine planets and Sun, as well as the 66 names of their various moons, which have been taken from legendary and literary sources. (Although I am aware that there are many more than 66 moons in our Solar system, I have chosen to employ only those satellites that have been named.) The following is a comprehensive list of the planets and Sun (in all three languages: English, Greek, and Latin) SAMPLEas well as their moons, in the order that they occur in Onomata planêtôn: English: Pluto Neptune Uranus Saturn Jupiter Mars Earth Venus Mercury Sun Greek: Hades Poseidon Ouranos Kronos Zeus Ares Gaia Aphrodite Hermes Helios Latin: Pluto Neptunus Uranus Saturnus Jupiter Mars Terra Venus Mercurius Sol Charon Nereid Setebos Phoebe Sinope Deimos Moon Triton Prospero Iapetus Pasiphæ Phobos Proteus Sycorax Hyperion Carme DO Larissa NOTStephano Titan Ananke PRINT Galatea Caliban Rhea Elara Despina Oberon Dione Lysithea Thalassa Titania Helene Himalia Naiad Umbriel Tethys Leda Ariel Telesto Callisto Miranda Calypso Ganymede Puck Enceladus Europa Belinda Mimas Io Rosalind Janus Thebe Portia Epimetheus Amalthea Juliet Pandora Adrastea Desdemona Prometheus Metis Cressida Atlas Bianca Pan Ophelia Cordelia The single moon of Pluto is named for the mythical Greek spirit who ferries souls of the dead across the river Styx to Hades. The moons of Neptune are named for eight characters of Greek myth that are also creatures in legends of the sea. The moons of Uranus are named for twenty characters in plays penned by William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. The moons of Saturn are named for eighteen of the Titans, the mythical beings that existed before the Gods of Olympus. The moons of Jupiter are named for sixteen of Zeus’ notorious paramours that are found in Greek myth. The moons of Mars are named for the god of war’s two sons, in Greek: “panic” and “fear.” There are no known moons in orbit around Venus, Mercury, or the Sun. For science and music nerds At the beginning of this work, the English names of the planets are sung – from the outermost (now dwarf) planet Pluto, inward. Each planet is assigned one of nine pitches of a Lydian scale (from F2 to G3), and each pitch is determined by the comparative size of each sphere: the larger the planet, the lower the pitch assigned. This Lydian planetary list is sung by the Bass 2 choral section. A “planetary” ostinato is then constructed by stacking choral voices in succession above this English list. The Bass 1 section sings the same planetary list as the Bass 2: this time in Greek, at a slight delay, and one perfect fifth higher. The Tenor 2 section then sings the planetary list in Latin: at a longer delay, and a perfect fifth higher still. So, the resultant interval between the lowest and highest strands in this ostinato becomes the symbolically significant ninth (referring to the number of planets in our Solar System). After this ostinato has been set into motion for a while, the trilingual and triadic ostinato of each individual planet is then repeated and prolonged, and with this repetition, the diatonic center of each planet is established in the middle (Greek) vocal strand. It is above the “spinning” of these stacked fifths that the names of its each planet’s satellites are intoned. Above the “spinning” ostinato of each planet’s repeated stacked fifths, the names of its moons, from the outermost satellite inward, are intoned, by the upper five choral parts (Soprano 1 and 2, Alto 1 and 2, and Tenor 1). These five voices enter, highest to lowest, at a canon of the second. The resultant diatonic clusters encompass the interval of the fifth, and recede as time elapses. As with the pitches of each planet, the pitch assigned to each moon is determined by its size. So, the name of a large moon is sung at a small interval above its planet’s pitch center, and the name of a small moon is sung high above it. (The giant moons of Jupiter are scored in a very low register, and the comparatively miniscule moons of Mars are intoned in a very high range.) The duration of each moon’s incantation and subsequent rest is related directly to the logarithm of its period (the time it takes to revolve around its home planet),© and each2015 moon’s internal rhythm is determined Eric solely by the rhythms Banks of its spoken pronunciation. For literary and legendary nerds Below is a list the Solar System's named moons, from the outermost satellite inward, with the origin of each name: PLUTO Charon the underworld deity who ferries the dead across the river Styx to Hades NEPTUNE Nereid the name for nymphs who dwell in the Mediterranean Sea Triton the son of Poseidon, represented as body of a man with the tail of a fish Proteus a shape-shifting sea divinity, capable of predicting the future Larissa the daughter of Pelasgus, the king of Argos and oldest ancestor of Greece Galatea one of the Nereids, the beloved of Acis Despina a nymph, daughterSAMPLE of Poseidon and Demeter, "mistress" Thalassa the daughter of Aether (the upper Air) and Day, also known as the Mediterranean Sea Naiad a general term for nymphs who dwell in fresh water rivers, brooks, and streams URANUS Setebos a god who attends Prospero and enslaves Ariel in Shakespeare's The tempest Prospero a magician and the duke of Milan in Shakespeare's The tempest Sycorax a witch and the mother of Caliban in Shakespeare's The tempest Stephano a butler in Shakespeare's The tempest, or the servant to Portia in Julius Caesar Caliban a savage, deformed slave of Prospero in Shakespeare's The tempest Oberon the king of the fairies in Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream DOTitania the queen of the fairiesNOT in Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream PRINT Umbriel a gnome in Alexander Pope's The rape of the lock Ariel the airy spirit in Shakespeare's The tempest or Pope's The rape of the lock Miranda the daughter of Prospero in Shakespeare's The tempest Puck a mischievous fairy in Shakespeare's A midsummer night's dream Belinda the heroine whose hair was stolen in Pope's The rape of the lock Rosalind the daughter of the banished duke in Shakespeare's As you like it Portia the wife of Brutus and rich heiress in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Juliet the daughter Capulet and tragic heroine in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet Desdemona the wife of Othello in Shakespeare's Othello Cressida the lover of Troilus in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida Bianca the mistress of Cassio in Shakespeare's Othello Ophelia the daughter of Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet Cordelia Lear's youngest daughter in Shakespeare's King Lear SATURN Phoebe the mother of Leto and grandmother of Apollo and Artemis Iapetus the father of Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus Hyperion the son of Heaven and Earth, father of Sun, Moon, and Dawn Titan one of the twelve offspring of Heaven and Earth, six male and six female Rhea the daughter of Heaven and Earth, wife of Kronos, and mother of the gods Dione a nymph and consort of Zeus, in some myths the mother of Aphrodite Helene a trusted friend of Aphrodite who helped her seduce Adonis Tethys the daughter of Heaven and Earth, wife of Oceanus, mother of the nymphs Telesto the saffron-clad nymph, daughter of Oceanus and Tethys Calypso the sea nymph who trapped Odysseus on the island of Ogygia for seven years Enceladus one of the Titan giants who fought against the Olympians and was killed by Zeus Mimas a centaur with black hair that was slain by Hercules Janus the god of gates and doors, represented with a double-faced head Epimetheus the son of Iapetus and husband of Pandora, Greek for "hindsight" Pandora the first woman, created in revenge for Prometheus' theft of fire from Olympus Prometheus the son of Iapetus, who stole fire from Olympus, Greek for "foresight" Atlas the son of Iapetus, condemned to support the sky on his shoulders Pan the deity of woods, fields, and flocks, half-goat and half-human, a son of Hermes JUPITER Sinope the granddaughter of Oceanus who was unsuccessfully courted by Zeus Pasiphae the daughter of Helios, who fell in love with Zeus and bare the Minotaur Carme a Cretan goddess and lover of Zeus, the mother of Britomartis Ananke the goddess of unalterable necessity, and the mother of Adrastea Elara a lover of Zeus, who hid her beneath the earth as she bare the giant Tityus Lysithea a nymph, daughter of Oceanus, and consort of Zeus Himalia a Cyprian nymph who bore three sons to Zeus Leda a queen of Sparta and beloved of Zeus, who visited her in the form of a swan Callisto the nymph attendant of Artemis, who was placed in the heavens as Ursa Major Ganymede a Trojan prince, brought by Zeus to Olympus to be the cup-bearer to the gods Europa a lover of Zeus, who swam to Crete and became the mother