Jirka Kratochvil spent time exploring Howe Caverns _ as a musician.
The result is ``Echoes in Stone,'' a recording of Native American flute music accompanied by water and embellished by the environment.
``The music is very meditative,'' he said. ``Calming and meditative.''
Kratochvil, associate professor of music at Hartwick College in Oneonta, said he considered recording his flute-playing in a studio but then wondered about finding a setting that was inspirational. He has previously worked and recorded pieces in churches and monasteries.
He hadn't visited Howe Caverns but saw photographs taken by his wife, Lucka, and said he thought they would be ``a really wonderful place to record.''
Howe Caverns is a limestone cave created by water, according to a description of the underground site in Howes Cave, and its formation continues with the River Styx weaving a path through the caverns.
Kratochvil said he went to the caverns about four times last autumn and spring to play music and make the recordings using portable equipment. He had the opportunity to be alone, without noise from other visitors, he said, and played among stones that were thousands of years old. Recording at the same site more than once yielded different sounds, he said, and the amount of water running through the cave also was a changing factor that produced a variety of acoustic impressions.
``I responded to the echoes, to the water,'' he said. Kratochvil said he found a variety of locations where water could be heard as drops or in the movement of a stream. The sounds of a boat on the lake and the silence of other sites supplied other acoustic canopies, and the environment spoke to him, he said, and ``let the music happen.''
``At one point, I turned the lights off ... absolute silence, absolute darkness,'' Kratochvil said. The resulting effect was almost hypnotic, he said, and lasted for hours.
Kratochvil inquired ``out of the blue'' about making a recording, said Robert Holt, general manager of Howe Caverns.
Holt said the site's founder, Lester Howe, played a fiddle in the cave in the 1880s, and musicians have long appreciated the acoustics inside the caverns.
Holt, who sings in the Depot Lane Singers in Schoharie County, said he had heard of the Hartwick professor and agreed to help with the project.
Howe Caverns has sold about 50 copies of ``Echoes In Stone'' and has ordered another 50, said Holt, who described the musical result as ``great.''
``I love it,'' he said.
Kratochvil said the project was a personal venture with no intent to market the result. The request by Howe Caverns to sell the recording and the resulting compliments have been flattering, he said.
For the recording, he used three or four flutes that were made of wood, such as bamboo, walnut or spruce. He said he started playing the Native American flute about two years ago because he was captivated by its nontraditional music-making format.
``It became my musical escape from my musical career,'' he said.
Kratochvil, a singer with a bass range, directs choral music at Hartwick, where he has taught music theory, diction and choral conducting. He also is director of the Hartwick Choral Festival and Institute and chairman of the Hartwick music department.
He recently collaborated with the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Czech Philharmonia in a world premiere recording of the Franz Waxman's oratorio, ``Joshua,'' on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Kratochvil was born in Prague, Czech Republic.
Kratochvil said ``Echoes In Stone'' turned out to be ``much more than a recording.''
``It was a real spiritual journey,'' he said. ``It was fascinating, absolutely fascinating.''
