This piece was inspired by Goya's painting 'Saturn Devouring his Son,' which depicts Saturn eating his own babies. I wanted to create an atmospheric experience to tell the listener a story about the painting through music and sounds. People may interpret it differently, but for me, the music follows Saturn’s descent into madness that ends with him eating all of his children except for one. There are 3 main sections. The first follows Saturn’s growing anger, the second represents the struggle between Saturn and his children, and the third is the actual devouring, followed by a hopeful hint that one son, Zeus, survives. I am envisioning this as part of a short series of pieces based on well-known paintings, including Caravaggio’s ‘Saint Francis in Prayer’ and da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper.’

Intro / Section 1-A
Bars 1-24 0:00-0:47
The opening act consists of Saturn marching and stomping and shows his presence and how big, aggressive, and angry he truly is. This first section includes a synth melody and two percussion tracks. The synth melody repeats a dissonant three bar loop 8 times. I designed the synth sound to be percussive and reverberant in order to create a tense, changing texture.

Section 1-B
‍Bars 25-57 0:47-1:52
The second part of the first section continues the synth loop from the beginning. An ocarina fades in and out with that same melody. Bells enter with a rhythmic melody on the notes A and B, and strings build ascending chord swells, showing the size and scale of how tall and big Saturn truly is. The erie atmosphere is maintained throughout with no action done yet by Saturn, nothing but tension now increasing. Sounds such as babies crying and fires start to fade in at the end of the section.
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Section 2
Bars 58-88 1:52-2:53
There are many samples such as sheep sounds, fires burning, and babies crying that come in as well as Moog synths and cello. Zithers and a kick drum all start to fade in and hip hop vocal chants come in as well. I chose to use a Zither instead of a guitar sound because of its ancient European history. Overall, this section setting the stage for what is about to come next. It shows how aggressive Saturn can become.
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Section 3-A
‍Bars 89-101 2:53-3:16
Everything then cuts out and a synth called Apocalyptic Control fades in. Then, I used a sample of chomping on chips to represent Saturn devouring his son. To make the sample sound more like a monstrous being, I lowered the pitch and stretched the time as well as adding reverb and delay.

Moog cuts out at bar 90 and comes back in at bar 100, leading into the next section. Saturn is still devouring his kids at the end of this section.

Section 3-B
‍Bars 101-128 3:16-4:10
The Glitched Piano kit comes in and it just builds and builds. Then, at the end of the section, everything dies down and the munching sound comes back in. The listener thinks Saturn is asleep, gone, or dead but later realizes Saturn is very much alive and well.

Section 3-C
‍Bars 128-138 4:10-4:31
Everything then cuts out apart from the sound of babies crying and the Moog synthesizer. Then the apocalyptic synth comes back in with the drums. Everything fades out and disappears. There is a little light beam of hope for a survivor out there in the end, which just happens to be Zeus. This is represented by the arpeggiated synth at the end. He goes on to defeat his dad Saturn, the mad Titan god.