The Fountain of Arethusa

5.8

“La Fontaine d'Aréthuse” opens with what has been described as a “shimmering wash of sound in the piano, octave leaps in the left hand passing above and below repeated chords in the right,” a tune which apparently suggests the splashing waters of a fountain. The story “told” by the music involves a naked water goddess on the river shore, who is pursued by a hunter, before disappearing into thin air to join her water once again.