The Five Ages of Man
(1963) for chorus and orchestra
Duration: 27 minutes
Text: based on extracts from Hesiod's "The Works and Days," trans. Richmond Lattimore
SATB Chorus
2(pic).222/4331/timp.3perc/pf/str[+brass: 2.2.2.1]
Commissioned by the Norwich and Norfolk Triennial Music Festival

World Premiere:  6 June 1964, St Andrew's Hall, Norwich
Festival Choir and Orchestra / Sir Charles Mackerras, conductor

Publisher:  Chester Music Ltd

Composer Note:

The text, taken from Hesiod's "Works and Days," is a Greek version of the story of the decline and fall of man. In the original legend (probably from Iran) man was destined to pass through four ages, each symbolized by a metal -- gold, silver, copper, and iron. But in Hesiod a fifth age is interpolated before the final iron age, which breaks this sequence of metals. For Hesiod did not surrender the idea of a brief time of honour and glory in the history of man -- the Homeric age of heroes.

Hesiod is the first great Greek poet emphasizing justice, which forms an important subsequent part of his poem. A short passage from this section is used and juxtaposed against the loud despairing "Now is the age of iron..." The whole work thus ends with the unresolved question: one which was posed by Hesiod nearly three thousand years ago -- will justice prevail or will we succumb to the catastrophe of the age of iron?

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