Katherine Needleman: Mimas

I. Diffusion

II. Makara

III. Chorale, Hornpipe, and Dies Irae

Listen here to a performance with Harrison Miller, bassoon, and the composer on piano.

Listen here to a performance with the composer on piano and bass oboe.

Date of Composition: 2022

Instrumentation: Heckelphone, bassoon, or bass oboe and piano

Duration: 13:30

Premiere: May 14, 2022 Baltimore MD

The name "Mimas" makes several references. To begin, Mimas was one of the Giants in Greek mythology. Mimas’ mother was Gaia, the ancestor of all life and the personification of Earth, and Mimas’ father was Uranus, the sky and the heavens. Father Sky despised his children and imprisoned the first generation, the Titans, inside Mother Earth. Like so many recorded conceptions afterward, Mimas’ creation was remarkable. Persuaded by his mother Gaia, the Titan Cronus castrated Uranus with a sickle. He cast his father's testicles into the sea. So fertile was Uranus that the foam from his testicles mixed with the sea to create Aphrodite, while the blood spilled into Mother Earth created Mimas and the other Giants.

Named for the Greek mythological Giant, Mimas is also one of Saturn's 82 (as of January, 2022) moons. Discovered in 1789 by William Herschel, it has an enormous crater named Herschel. It is the smallest known astronomical body to maintain a round shape from self-gravitation. Underneath its surface of 20 miles of ice, scientists believe there is a hidden ocean. Herschel was created from an impact so large that it nearly shattered Mimas.

Furthermore, Mimas was the name of the fictional giant redwood tree which appeared in Richard Powers’ 2018 novel, The Overstory. A central figure of the novel, Mimas houses two environmentalists for a year while they experience its wonders and try to prevent its destruction. The environmentalists fail and Mimas is tragically felled. Yet Mimas lives on in certain ways, connected to the deep and mysterious messaging of the natural world.

This piece was conceived in late 2021 in response to Jim Rodgers' request for a work for Heckelphone and piano. I tried to find a suitable setting for the bestial, giant and wooden qualities of the Heckelphone. When I delivered the Heckelphone part, Rodgers suggested that bassoonists could also play the piece to make it more accessible to more performers. I did not love this idea at first, especially because the ranges of the two instruments are rather different. But when he became indisposed for the premiere, I significantly reworked the piece for bassoon in a way that uses all of the instrument’s range without pushing it to the heights of the Heckelphone. I am grateful to Harrison Miller for his advice on the bassoon part as well as giving the premiere with me at the piano on May 14, 2022, in Baltimore, MD. In preparing recorded materials for early performances, I made a bass oboe version, somewhat different than both the Heckelphone and bassoon versions.