The Greek Youth Symphony Orchestra Play Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 11 November 2024 14:49

Written by Jack Angstreich

At Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, on the night of Sunday, November 3rd, I had the great pleasure to attend a terrific concert presented by the extraordinary musicians of the Greek Youth Symphony Orchestra, superbly led by Dionysis Grammenos, its Artistic Director and Conductor.

The event opened strongly with a sterling account of Anna Clyne’s compelling << rewind << from 2005, a suspenseful work that builds to a dramatic climax, ending abruptly. A useful program note records the following: 

Described as a “composer of uncommon gifts and unusual methods” in a New York Times profile and as “fearless” by NPR, GRAMMY-nominated Anna Clyne is one of the most in-demand composers today, working with orchestras, choreographers, filmmakers, and visual artists around the world. Clyne was named by Bachtrack as one of the top ten most performed contemporary composers in the world and the most performed living female British composer in both 2022 and 2023. 

It also reports:

<< rewind <<  is inspired by the image of analog video tape rapidly scrolling backwards with fleeting moments of skipping, freezing and warping. The original version, for orchestra and tape, was composed  in 2005 for choreographer, and Artistic Director of Hysterica Dance Company, Kitty McNamee. 

The highlight of the evening was the opportunity to hear a marvelous rendition of selections from the seldom performed, magnificent Greek Dances by Nikos Skalkottas. Annotator Titos Gouvelis offers   some valuable commentary: 

In 1933, Nikos Skalkottas was forced to leave Berlin, where he had developed a rich career as a composer at the vanguard of contemporary music. He returned to Athens, a place where the radical innovations that dominated the Central European musical scene could not be neither comprehended, nor accepted. The years leading up to his death (1949) were difficult and fraught with challenges, both artistic and practical. On the one hand, his contemporaries, for the most part, did not recognize or fully appreciate his extraordinary compositional talent; on the other, he remained uncompromising in his aesthetic aims and aspirations, preferring to serve Music with consistency and sincerity, even at the cost of obscurity. 

For many, the 36 Greek Dances for orchestra represent not only a pinnacle of Skalkottas' creation but perhaps the most important work of Greek music of the 20th century. Composed primarily between 1934 and 1936, this work was the result of the composer's collaboration with the Greek Folklore Museum of the French Institute of Athens and its director, Melpo Merlier, who commissioned Skalkottas to transcribe, analyze, and comment on recordings of folk songs from Crete and Sifnos. It is worth noting that several Dances are not based on authentic traditional melodies, but on folk-inspired melodies written by Skalkottas himself, attesting to his genuine and deep interest in Greek traditional music and his profound knowledge of the genre. This is evidenced by his ability to convincingly capture the style of traditional music through his own original themes, while maintaining a distinctly Greek character. 

The Greek Dances do not belong to Skalkottas' atonal works. Although for many years he had engaged—with great success—in the use and development of an atonal musical language, the composer had a clear view of the aesthetic limitations of this style. The Greek Dances have clear and easily recognizable tonal centers. However, they cannot be characterized as purely tonal works, since unexpected harmonies or distinctive scattered dissonances create the adventurous feeling of a continuous harmonic suspension. The composer's choices in orchestration are equally original, balancing between dense, multi-layered orchestral action and a clarity that is perhaps of “neoclassical” origin. The 36 Greek Dances, while maintaining clear distances from the artistic tenets of both the composers of the Greek National School of Music and the proponents of pure modernism, reveal Skalkottas' unique perspective on the concept of “Greekness”. And this view remains relevant and timeless, as it actively places the Greek element into an equal dialogue with European classical music. He rightly considers it as an identity that guides and inspires, an identity without limitations, that liberates the mind.

The selections began with two from the first series—the spirited “Ipirotikos” and a stirring “Dance of Zalongo”—preceding three from the third series: the exuberant “Kleftikos,” with subdued moments; the more lyrical, even meditative “Ipirotikos”; and the march-like “Arcadikos,” which had a celebratory quality and ends softly. Two more from the first series ensued, the “Macedonikos,” which has a more hurried pace and finishes suddenly and the entrancing “Critikos.” These were succeeded by three more from the third series, starting with the “Mariori,” which traverses a striking range of moods, opening reflectively, then becoming playful, more solemn—even lugubrious—jocular, and inward, closing gently. The “Messolongitikos” is propulsive, reminiscent of “Gypsy music,” and the set concluded with the also exhilarating “Mazochtos.”

The second half of the concert proper was also remarkable, consisting of an exciting version of Leonard Bernstein’s dazzling Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. The Prologue is tense with jazzy interludes, followed by the lovely, passionate “Somewhere.” Next were the charming, ludic “Scherzo” and the ebullient, even rambunctious “Mambo,” before the enchanting “Cha-cha” and “Meeting Scene.” The “Cool” dance is tumultuous and thoroughly captivating, while the “Rumble” is turbulent and powerful. The Finale is transcendent, indeed an apotheosis. Ardent applause elicited three fabulous encores: Bernstein’s Candide Overture, Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, and the beautiful song, "Omorfi Poli" (Όμορφη Πόλη) by Mikis Theodorakis.