Metamorpheus is Steve Hackett

Steve Hackett

Stephen Richard Hackett is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. He gained prominence as a member of the British progressive rock group Genesis, which he joined in 1970 and left in 1977 to pursue a solo career...

's classical album. This is the successor to A Midsummer Nights Dream. Metamorpheus is an expression on Orpheus and his passage through the Underworld. The use of the nylon guitar and the Underground Orchestra naturally gives a link between the small and big moments of this album.

The cover of the album was created by Kim Poor, the picture on the sleeves of the previous album To Watch The Storms also features the song "Rebecca".

This album makes use of themes first used by Hackett in short pieces (only released as free MP3 downloads) for the soundtrack of the 2001 Showtime documentary Outwitting Hitler.

Track listing

1. "The Pool of Memory and the Pool of Forgetfulness" – 2:15
2. "To Earth Like Rain" – 1:33
3. "Song to Nature" – 3:02
4. "One Real Flower" – 3:12
5. "The Dancing Ground" – 3:02
6. "That Vast Life" – 12:27
7. "Eurydice Taken" – 1:48
8. "Charon's Call" – 3:15
9. "Cerberus at Peace" – 2:06
10. "Under the World - Orpheus Looks Back" – 5:16
11. "The Broken Lyre" – 3:17
12. "Severance" – 3:05
13. "Elegy" – 3:18
14. "Return to the Realm of Eternal Renewal" – 2:56
15. "Lyra" – 6:36

Facts

• This is the first album where limited copies of the Electronic Press Kit for the album was released for purchase on the Camino Records website.

Personnel

• Steve Hackett - guitars
• John Hackett – flute
  Flute
  The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
  
  , piccolo, guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , orchestral arrangements
• Colin Clague – trumpet
  Trumpet
  The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
  
  
• Dick Driver – double bass
  Double bass
  The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
  
  
• Richard Kennedy – french horn
• Richard Stewart – cello
  Cello
  The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
  
  
• Lucy Wilkins – violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  
• Sara Wilson – cello

Other personnel

• Benedict Tobias Fenner – engineer
• Roger King – engineer, mastering, mixing, orchestral arrangements
• Jerry Peal – engineer, contribution
• Harry Pearce – design
• Kim Poor – cover painting