Nikos Skalkottas - Mayday Spell, Concerto for Double Bass & Orchestra, 3 Greek Dances

Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949) was versatile, inventive and prolific. To that effect, this CD works as a nice sampler of the composer's qualities. Two of the works (Mayday spell and the three Greek dances) are tonal, both employ Greek folk music motives, arranged in a neo-classical form and orchestrated in Skalkottas' unique manner. Christodoulou's interpretation is somewhat technical, yet still captures the magic of Skalkottas writing. The Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra is atonal and will most certainly appeal to hardened/converted fans. Expertly crafted music from an obscure genius deserving wider recognition.

Track listing

Mayday Spell - A Fairy Drama, Symphonic Suite (1944-49)
1. I. Overture 8'08
2. II. Fairy Tale 7'14
3. III. Ballet - Dance of the Faires 3'29
4. IV. Love scene 1'19
5. V. Argyro´s Song 0'59
6. VI. Little Dance Song 0'55
7. VII. Folk-song 4'29
8. VIII. Short folk dance 0'43
9. IX. Prelude 0'58
10. X. The mother´s lament 4'27

Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra (1942)
11. I. Andante - Allegro 7'32
12. II. Andantino 4'30
13. III. Allegro vivo e molto ritmato 5'21

Three Greek Dances for strings (1936)
14. Nissiotikos 4'57
15. Tsamikos 2'10
16. Mazochtos 1'54

personnel

Þóra Einarsdóttir, soprano
Vassilis Papavassiliou, double bass
Iceland Symphony Orchestra, orchestra
Nikos Christodoulou, conductor

Nikos Skalkottas (1904-49) Music For Violin And Piano

Nikos Skalkottas produced his abundant compositional legacy in virtual obscurity. Even some of his close colleagues and family members had no idea he was a composer. A half century after Skalkottas' early death, the Greek composer is finally getting his due. Gunther Schuller's Margun Music has published a significant handful of scores, while BIS continues what hopes to be an ongoing survey of his music. In certain respects, it's a miracle that the music has survived at all. Much of Skalkottas' prolific output only exists in manuscript; tracking it all down amounts to a detective job from hell. For instance, only the second movement survives from Skallkotas' first of four Violin Sonatinas recorded here. It's a three-minute curio that aptly can be described as "Schoenberg meets Samba".

Much of Skalkottas' music, in fact, evokes the lilting, cosmopolitan sound world of the composers who made up "Les Six", yet the grammar is thoroughly rooted in Schoenberg's gritty, uncompromising 12-tone lexicon. Hints of catchy melodies flicker in and out of thorny chordal bushes and spiky rhythmic cells. Skalkottas is fond of abrupt endings. Each of Sonata for Solo Violin's four movements, for example, concludes in midthought, as if the composer simply decided to stop in his tracks and give his feverish pen a rest.

While it makes programming and marketing sense to build a CD release around all the Skalkottas violin music, it's best to absorb these dense, quirky works in small doses. Start with the oddly engaging Little Chorale and Fugue, then proceed to the larger-scaled Fourth Sonatina. Then choose an encore from any of the five concluding miniatures at the end of the disc. Georgios Demertzis and Maria Asteriadou dive head first into this strange, insidiously original music, playing with ferocity and musicianly abandon. Powerful stuff. ~Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Track listing:

Sonata for Solo Violin (1925)
1. I. Allegro furioso, quasi Presto 2'33
2. II. Adagietto 2'42
3. III. Allegro ritmato 1'41
4. IV. Adagio - Allegro molto Moderato 5'40

Sonatina No.1 for Violin and Piano (1929)
5. II. Andantino 2'50

Sonatina No.2 for Violin and Piano (1929)
6. I. Allegro 2'13
7. II. Andante 2'20
8. III. Allegro vivace 2'01

Sonatina No.3 for Violin and Piano (1935)
9. I. Allegro giusto 2'55
10. II. Andante 5'06
11. III. Maestoso - Vivace 3'17

Sonatina No.4 for Violin and Piano (1935)
12. I. Moderato 3'26
13. II. Adagio 6'49
14. III. Allegro moderato 2'51

Little Chorale and Fugue (c.1936/37?)
15. Adagio 1'16
16. Moderato 1'40

17. March of the Little Soldiers (c. 1936/37?) 0'50

18. Nocturne (c. 1936/37?) 4'53

19. Rondo (c. 1936/37?) 1'18

20. Gavotte (1939) 1'36

21. Scherzo (c. 1940?) 2'22

22. Menuetto Cantato (c. 1940?) 2'14

personnel:

Georgios Demertzis, violin
Maria Asteriadou, piano

BIS CD-1024, 1999

ClassicsToday.com 10/10

Nikos Skalkottas (1904-49) - Ballet Music for Piano

BIS' vividly titled The Land and the Sea of Greece takes its moniker from an inspired and lively ballet suite by that title dating from 1948; it, Island Images (1943), and The Maiden and Death (1938) constitutes all of the ballet music Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas produced for solo piano. It is played by a young Greek virtuoso, Lorenda Ramou, who also functions as one-half of Duo Palmós, which specializes in four-hand Greek piano music. This is the 16th disc in BIS' comprehensive series exposing the complete works of Skalkottas, the former Schoenberg student who was probably the greatest classical composer Greece produced in the twentieth century, little represented on recordings until BIS took up his cause in 1999.

The Maiden and Death is already recognized as a landmark work in Skalkottas' oeuvre, as it opens the door to what would prove the final chapter in Skalkottas' artistic development, a relaxation of his use of twelve-tone techniques in favor of more traditional, folk-derived motifs, nonetheless informed by his contact with serialism. The score for an orchestral version of The Maiden and Death, made by Skalkottas in the mid-'40s, has disappeared, so a reconstruction was made based on this piano version combined with old photographs taken of the missing orchestral score. The orchestral The Maiden and Death has already been recorded, but Ramou's performance here is the first of the piano original. Island Images was written for dancer Aleka Mazaraki-Katseli, then a student of Polyxeni Mathéy, whose work as a choreographer and ballet teacher proved the impetus that inspired much of the music here. There are some tiny photographs reproduced in the booklet of early performances of The Land and the Sea of Greece, one of which takes place on a barge mid-water off the Island of Aegina -- one wishes that these were easier to see.

Skalkottas' music is ruthlessly efficient, somewhat cold, and akin to Prokofiev's ballet music, although his musical style is unquestionably Greek and not Russian. It is also intense and brightly rhythmic; it is easy to see how well chiseled these creations were wrought for the dance. In these piano versions, however, it's rather hard for the sound of the music to avoid a certain "piano rehearsal" quality; that's pretty much what these scores were meant for. Nevertheless, Ramou projects the best aspects that the music has to offer, and it's a promising recording debut for her in addition to being a strong addition to Skalkottas' ever-expanding recorded catalog. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide

Tracklisting
1-6 The Land and the Sea of Greece, ballet suite for piano 21:29
7-12 Island Images, ballet suite for piano 13:18
13-19 The Maiden and Death, ballet suite for piano 19:26
20 Procession to Acheron, ballet music for piano 4:23
21 Echo, ballet for Piano 4:11