BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
In 62CE, an earthquake shattered Pompeii. Then 17 years later, a volcanic eruption destroyed what remained of the city.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius smothered Pompeii with ash and debris, and suffocated its inhabitants with extreme heat and toxic gases. This ash would also preserve a snapshot of the daily lives of those who lived in this ancient trade hub.
The excavation of the site, which began in the 18th Century, would contribute to the birth of modern archaeology. Now thousands of tourists travel to Pompeii every day, hoping to understand the mysteries of the lost city.
This is the inspiration behind Peggy Polias’ new composition, which will be performed alongside the National Museum of Australia’s major Pompeii exhibition.
The Australian composer looked into the artefacts that were excavated from the site; close to 100 items from Pompeii are on display in Canberra.
We sat down with Peggy (pictured below) to learn how she works on a composition of this nature, and how we can hear the stories of Pompeii in her music. The CSO Chamber Orchestra will perform its world premiere in the museum, and the piece features on an all-Australian concert program.
Peggy, congratulations on being chosen as the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s Composer in Connection. This is a role I’ve not heard of before; we often hear about Composers in Residence. What makes this collaboration with the orchestra different?
Thanks so much Stephanie! As far as I understand the relationship, this is something of a residency. However, I’m based in Sydney, not in Canberra. So we are touching base remotely for the most part, creatively and administratively. I think the title Composer in Connection honours this, and also has nice alliteration!
What I particularly love about being the Composer in Connection with Canberra Symphony Orchestra for 2025 is that I was invited to this role based on the season theme of Stories. This strongly resonates with my own creative work, often exploring myths from ancient Greece and literary artefacts more broadly.
You’re writing three compositions for the CSO this year — a substantial workload. How long does it take you to put together a piece of music from concept to completion? And are there any tools or methods you have developed and like returning to?
Yes, I would agree that this is a substantial workload alongside my work as an academic, music librarian and freelancer!
This is a really good question. Given that my work is shared between so many roles including the composing, it’s hard to quantify how long ‘just’ the composing takes. I usually like to have 3-6 months to be constantly stewing over the work, during which the music becomes fleshed out in intensive bursts in my home studio, often working cross-legged on the floor, by hand, within arm’s reach of the electric piano and notation software on the computer.
In recent years during doctoral studies, I looked really closely at process, and it emerged that my approach to composing is basically messy multimedia journalling. I often advise my composition students that a big part of creativity is a chain of decision-making that takes a raw idea through the process of becoming a work.
For each composition, I usually have one physical file folder and one digital one that can contain any or all of the following artefacts that have aided my own decision-making: mind maps, drawings on graph paper, harmonic arrays sketched out in coloured pens, audio memos from my smartphone, saved Wikipedia articles, photocopies from books, visual mood-boards, scores by other composers and corresponding recordings, excel spreadsheets, lists, etc.
Let’s talk about your first composition of three for CSO — one that will premiere at the National Museum of Australia. Art and music have historic connections, but your music isn’t based on a painting or literature. It surrounds an exhibition featuring historical artefacts and stories. What do you find most fascinating about the history of Pompeii?
I have been fortunate to visit the site of Pompeii once, as a backpacker in September 2000. The fact that its demise, buried beneath ash, has been the same factor that enabled its preservation is so striking; the city has the sense of being frozen in time. And the variety of surviving artefacts is so diverse, from the treasures of the affluent to mystical art to the most mundane daily staples: a loaf of bread, a set of dice. It’s almost heartbreaking.
How has the Pompeii exhibition inspired your work, whether it’s a story you discovered, or particular objects you saw? Can we ‘hear’ the exhibition in your music?
I’m very grateful to colleagues at the Canberra Symphony Orchestra for putting me in touch with curators from the National Museum of Australia: Catherine Czerw, Lily Withycombe, along with Jessi England, head of programs. They were able to point me in the direction of the full listing of artefacts, as well as the immersive, experiential design of the exhibition.
I do have a tendency to compose in response to particular characters, stories or artefacts, so I let the listing guide me, and eventually I settled on a pair of cameo glass (blue and white) images of the Roman myths around Ariadne and Bacchus (Dionysus). I was particularly struck by how many other artefacts featured Bacchus in various guises, but my feminist tendencies drew me to reflect more on Ariadne. This naturally led to stories of her contribution to the story of Theseus, with the clever offer of a ball of string to navigate the Minotaur’s labyrinth.
The music has ended up in three sections:
Labyrinthum I: Threads
Shards of Blue Glass
Labyrinthum II: Ashes
The outer sections meander through various harmonies following a labyrinthine path that I drew through a 3D array of simple triads. They give the sensation of uncertainty and reflection, and are inspired by recurring graphic motifs of the labyrinth, in Cretan artefacts and beyond.
The first section charts a path outwards — out of the Minotaur’s lair — and the final section honours Pompeii’s demise, buried beneath volcanic matter, and closes with a quote from Pliny the Younger in his account of the eruption of Vesuvius.
The middle section is a rather Greek-sounding ‘blues’ that reflects on the physical qualities of the cameo glass panels themselves. White figurations on blue background, and fragmented, having been glued back together, reconstructed.
I understand that your own story is intertwined in the music as well; tell us a bit about that.
Ariadne’s stories are connected to Crete, where my maternal grandfather originated, through the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.
Later in the narrative sequence, there are stories that Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos, where my maternal grandmother originated, and where Ariadne was also celebrated.
I marvel at how the narrative thread connects these two places from my heritage, and continued to spread as far as Pompeii, traversing time and language. This really affirmed the intuitive choice of the cameos as the object of my sonic reflection.
You composed the work to be performed by a particular orchestra in a particular space — so I’d love to know how your work interacts with these elements.
I think for me the musical experience adds two dimensions to the experience of the exhibition, which is already quite immersive. The fact that music is temporal allows audience members and/or exhibition-goers to reflect freely on the exhibition theme for the duration of the piece. And while the music doesn’t carry a concrete narrative or program, I have imbued it with a strong sensory trajectory that I think complements the exhibition quite well. It’s another way to experience the stories and objects alongside it.
I don’t think audience members need to go to the exhibition, nor exhibition-goers need to attend this concert. But for those who are able to do both, I’m hoping they will find the show and the composition complementary.
Hear the world premiere of Peggy Polias’ new work with the CSO Chamber Ensemble in Sleeping Stories, 6.30pm March 20 in the National Museum of Australia.
World premieres from Alice Chance and Christopher Sainsbury will also feature on the program alongside music from Nardi Simpson and Jane Sheldon.
The Pompeii exhibition runs at the museum until 4 May.
Images of the artist supplied.
Pompeii panel credit Following Hadrian via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA-2.0. Pompeii ruins by Paul Kelley via Flickr, CC-BY-2.0.
Have your say.