Clive Mitten: Gilgamesh

Music written, performed, recorded, and produced by Clive in his home studio.

The texts were translated, abridged, and edited by Clive and spoken by Pete Lawrence.

Clive Mitten’s latest project sees him setting to music the epic tale of Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh was a King of Sumer c.2,700 BCE. His Epic grew over 1,500 years to become at tale of a hero and a tyrant. Clive has studied the Epic for many years, being one of the few people in the world who can read the cuneiform script.

CD1 contains the Epic spoken by Pete Lawremce with Clive’s music followed by the classic Sumerian tale, Inanna and the Underworld. CD2 features Clive’s instrumental version of the Epic and the famous myth of Noah and the Flood.

There are four main musical themes in Gilgamesh: The Epic. Gilgamesh Fanfare, Enkidu Fanfare, the moods of Ishtar, the Goddess of Love and War, and a lamented for Enkidu.

Gilgamesh: A Musical Odyssey. These are the instrumental mixes from Disc One giving the listener a chance to hear all the detail therein. Most of the tracks have also been enhanced with further instrumentation some of which is most unexpected…

The CD will be accompanied by a lavish 24-page booklet, which includes all the text as well as images of the key players over a 2,000-year period. All told it is a quite a remarkable album pairing the epic story of Gilgamesh with Clive’s thoughtful and imaginative musical settings.

TRACK LIST:

Disc One – GILGAMESH: THE EPIC

1. Overture
2. Gilgamesh the Hero
3. Gilgamesh the Tyrant
4. The Gods create an equal to Gilgamesh
5. Enkidu and Shamhat
6. Enkidu the Hero
7. Gilgamesh and Enkidu The Fight
8. Friends and Lovers
9. The Journey to the Forest of Cedar
10. Humbaba
11. A Job Well Done
12. The Goddess Ishtar and Gilgamesh
13. The Bull of Heaven
14. The Death of Enkidu
15. A Lament for Enkidu
16. The Mountains of Mashu
17. The Road to Uta-Napishti
18. The Return to Uruk
19. Postscript
20. Inanna and the Underworld (A Sumerian Tale)

Disc Two – A MUSICAL ODYSSEY

1. A Musical Odyssey 1
2. A Musical Odyssey 2
3. A Musical Odyssey 3
4. A Musical Odyssey 4
5. A Musical Odyssey 5
6. Noah and the Flood (King James Version VI to VIII)

So how and why did Clive come to create this extraordinary piece of work…

Clive has studied the Epic for many years being one of the few who reads the cuneiform script.

Having left the band in the 1980s, he lived close to the British Museum and was intrigued by all things Assyrian therein. In 1990 he embarked on a four-year degree at the nearby School of Oriental Studies to study all things cuneiform and satisfy his curiosity.

As the only student with two professors he learnt not only the main cuneiform scripted languages Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian) and Hittite, but many of the languages on the periphery including Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic.

At the same time his Akkadian professor was completing his definitive scholarly Epic of Gilgamesh. Clive was lucky enough to be taught all 11 tablets and worked at the British Museum on the Flood Tablet, a thing that counts as one of the highlights of his life.

Clive finished the four years with the highest First in the University of London in 1994.