''Le Rouet d'Omphale'' (''The Spinning Wheel of Omphale'' or ''Omphale's Spinning Wheel''), Op. 31, is a

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ( ...

for orchestra, composed by

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (, , 9October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano ...

in 1871. It is one of the most famous of the four symphonic poems in a mythological series by Saint-Saëns. The other three in the series are ''Danse macabre'', ''Phaéton'', and ''La jeunesse d'Hercule''. The middle section of ''Le Rouet d'Omphale'' was used as the theme music to the

radio drama Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the liste ...

, ''

The Shadow The Shadow is a fictional character created by American magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by Gibs ...

''.

Analysis

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

condemns

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

to serve

Omphale In Greek mythology, Omphale (; ) was princess of the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor. Diodorus Siculus provides the first appearance of the Omphale theme in literature, though Aeschylus was aware of the episode. The Greeks did not recognize her a ...

while disguised as a woman: While wearing woman's dress, Hercules slaves for three years spinning wool for her on a

spinning wheel A spinning wheel is a device for spinning thread or yarn from fibres. It was fundamental to the textile industry prior to the Industrial Revolution. It laid the foundations for later machinery such as the spinning jenny and spinning frame, ...

References

External links

* * Symphonic poems by Camille Saint-Saëns Music based on European myths and legends Compositions for symphony orchestra 1871 compositions The Shadow Heracles {{Classical-composition-stub