This piece is in the evocative ancient Greek Phrygian mode – in this piece, I try to convey the ancient mystery of the Vapours of Delphi:
“When the ancient Greeks and Romans had a question of great import, they travelled to the navel (omphalos) of the world, which they believed to be at Delphi, on the steep slopes of Mount Parnassus in Greece .
Mount Parnassus was Apollo’s mountain — the mountain of wisdom and music, the place where Apollo had given Orpheus his lyre and taught him to play it, a place that other artistic places (such as Montparnasse in Paris) still try to evoke today
They climbed up the Sacred Way, past about 3,000 statues and various temples and shrines, until they reached the Temple of Apollo. Because Apollo could see the future, he would have the answer to any question, here at his temple.
And he gave his answer through a woman, the Pythia. She would sit above a chasm in the rock through which the god sent vapours (pneuma) that put the woman in a trance. Thus possessed, the Pythia would babble, and priests were at hand to transcribe her words into beautiful hexameter which they gave to the individual who had asked a question” http://andreaskluth.org/2010/08/25/the-vapors-of-delphi/