reviews
Thanassis
Moraitis
Pictures
for the sadness
of
the blond girls and of Eleni
Alexandros Myrat |
Sonia
Theodoridou |
Dimitris
Kotronakis |
Vangelis
Christopoulos
Renato Ripo |
New
Hellenic Quartet |
Ourania
Lampropoulou |
Sophia
Lampropoulou
of symphonic structure
interpreted by
leading
performers of the Greek music scene
Elegy for solo violoncello .
String
Quartet no 1 .
Amsterdam
Concerto
Stories of grandma sea .
Fajum
EXCLUSIVE SPONSOR OF THE ORCHESTRA for 2010
Eurobank
EFG Group
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Review in musical magazine
JAZZ&TZAZ / Issue March 2012
by Thomas Tamvakos
(Translated by Demetrios Lekkas)
Thanassis Moraitis
Pictures
for the sadness of the blond girls and of Eleni
This public production of
two recordings of EMI Classics features the creative labour of Thanassis
Moraitis as a composer in the decade of 2000-09. The publication once again has
brought to the foreground the issue of
quality creation of self-taught composers – in the field of symphonic music
– such as Thanassis Moraitis (known however as a singer, writer and researcher).
The
riveting-overwhelming creator’s answer with his music, exceptional in every
aspect, replete with countless exciting soundscapes, tips the scale towards
affirmation.
I was not sufficiently
acquainted with Th. Moraitis’s composing aptitude, aside from his
interpretative avocation with the new Greek art urban song scene (Theodorakis,
Hadjidakis) and with traditional music (Arvanitic songs). Yet, after listening
to these two sets of recordings, I completely changed my mind, declaring myself
stunned by his musical creation. He himself had stressed that these symphonic works (as he calls them) are
written by someone who never studied music in a conservatoire but taught
himself, interacting with musicians.
Thus the full and highly
pleasant reversal attained with the material at hand has brought forth the
image of a genuine and outstanding creation, which is diverse – mostly
concerning theme and arrangement – and also never made public.
In this demanding
venture, fortunately, valuable support to the composer came from a considerable
number of high grade performers who trusted in him and gave their best self.
This harmonious conjunction of both quality creation and interpretation
permeates throughout this generous (double) recording, and the listener feels
benefited.
As far as the details
are concerned: six assorted yet qualitatively equivalent compositions (three in
each recording set). Starting by the staggering five-part song cycle for voice,
string and wind orchestra, on poetry by C. Caryotakis, the “Elegy” for solo
violoncello and the lyrical “Amsterdam Concerto” for guitar and string orchestra,
so technically demanding, we are led through to the next piece, combining
traditional and ethnic elements: “Stories of Grandma Sea” for santouri (i.e. dulcimer),
harpsichord, violoncello and double bass, to a conclusion with “Fajum” for qanun,
Constantinopolitan fiddle, ney, violoncello and double bass.
Our beloved Camerata-Orchestra
of Friends of Music takes part under the baton of Alexandros Myrat (disciplined,
faithful to the sense of the manuscript), along with charismatic soprano Sonia
Theodoridou (conceivably the best performance ever in a Greek vocal work), guitarist
Dimitris Kotronakis (his unparalleled performance gave prominence to the piece
as a match to famous pieces of the international repertoire), oboist Vangelis
Christopoulos (his performance as always synonymous to guarantee), prominent
cellist Renato Ripo, Ourania Lampropoulou on santouri, Sophia Lampropoulou on qanun
as well as the New Hellenic Quarter, one of the topmost ensembles of its genre
on a European level.
***********************************
Review in musical
magazine JAZZ&TZAZ, Issue 216, March 2011
by Cornelius Diamantopoulos
(Translated by Demetrios Lekkas)
Thanassis Moraitis
Pictures
for the sadness of the blond girls and of Eleni
Every now and then
things happen which surprise us sometimes in a positive and sometimes in a negative way. Surprises are in the
agenda. They shouldn’t be, though, since, if one excludes large scale disasters
(earthquake, pestilence, flood etc.), most of these cases are, deep down,
surprises on… prior notice. The signs, auspicious or ominous, gay or gloomy,
always predict or prognosticate what a not tuned-in receiver will call a
“surprise” the following day. Into this case we can include the latest album of
Thanassis Moraitis, (remarkably) our first countryman having a CD released on
EMI Classics since the 90’s… His two-disc opus, listened to for the first time
– but also a second and a third time – sounds impressive! Nay, more than
impressive, if one should take contemporary local analogues into account. Yet it
should hardly be viewed thus because, despite the fact that it falls like a megalith
into the stagnant waters of art music discography, so to speak, premonitions had
been roaring.
We had known the
composer-singer whom Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis once entrusted, still
young and unknown. We were not unfamiliar with his studies (Byzantine music),
his collaborations (Markos Dragoumis, Demetrios Lekkas) plus a portion of his so
far clean-cut, remarkable and multi-facet involvement in discography. We had
not been aware of his research on the anthology of Arvanitic songs, his
symphonic – choral projects, his chamber music compositions and Missa Graeca, a
All six opuses are
characterized by austerity, sorrowfulness, nostalgia, introversion,
profoundness (subjectively speaking of course), but the two last ones paint
unprecedented soundscapes. In Stories of grandma sea we have
Ourania Lampropoulou: santouri, Renato Ripo: violoncello, Vassilis
Liarmakopoulos: double bass and Takis Farazis: harpsichord and musical direction.
A music score of distinctive aesthetic quality, without unwarranted virtuosities,
with a frugality of means and with some truly magical moments! A twenty-minute-long
work of art! In the epilogue (Fajum)
the quintet comprises: qanun, Constantinopolitan fiddle, ney, violoncello and double
bass (Sophia Lampropoulou, Socrates Sinopoulos, Haris Lamprakis, Renato Ripo
and Vangelis Zografos). The composer conducts. One falls short of words to
describe this delicacy; not only is it an exquisite poem of sound but it also constitutes an authoritative proposal of our past
and future amidst such a fluid musical present.
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LIFO, issue 230, December 23, 2010
THE
INFUENTIALS 2010
35 outstanding
personalities of
Thanassis Moraitis
Because
he is the first Greek to have an album released on EMI Classics after more than
20 years.
From
Alexandros Myrat*
(Translated by Demetrios Lekkas)
He
came in. I had never met him. We spoke. “I want you to record my music” he
said. Opening the scores, I got the impression that he was confiding his precious
offspring to me. It was not as if another composer stood in front of me, as I
always have the curiosity to meet one, but a bit as if he was an “other”
composer.
Upon receiving the
sheets of paper printed with musical notes, and before opening them, a feeling crossed
my mind, like a flash, that this man, with his pure and clean gaze, as he was
looking at me, does not compose just to spend time. These impressions, as I now
write them down consuming some natural time to formulate them, were the instant
feelings arising almost every time upon the first instants of a new
acquaintance.
And next what? As I
always have done, at least in the last thirty years, I opened the first page,
then the last one and after that I opened some random page in the middle. And, once
more, as it always has been happening, at least in the last thirty years, this
first impression I draw from this ostensibly frivolous evaluation did not
disprove me.
The man I had in front
of me does not compose as a hobby; he does not compose because he is a
“professional of the profession” –as my great “master” Jean-Luc Godard would
say– but obeying of an imperative necessity.
The printed paper must
come to life. Moves will be made, sounds will come out. We have to understand
them, fathom them. In this procedure love –maybe– makes an appearance. Without
its presence, we are doomed to remain stuck to matter, to sound in this
particular case. But if perchance we feel love, we get a chance to escape the
material world and to touch the essence of music. This happened, as far as I’m
concerned, already from studying at the table. In the next stage, though, I
have to manage to convey this to my musicians. Camerata, an orchestra of ethos
and principle, in the most ungracious phase of its twenty-year-long history and
because of the brutality of the environment in which it lives and evolves in
all these years, instantly embraced these compositions and managed to transcend.
I shan’t talk about the music because I’m not a musicologist. The touch to the souls of all of us will be heard, I hope, in the recording of your projects. I thank you, the composer, for the opportunity and challenge you gave us to perhaps transcend. I thank you, Thanassis Moraitis.
*Alexandros Myrat is the resident conductor of Megaron Orchestra, Camerata of the Friends of Music (Concert hall of Athens)
***********************************
Review in musical
magazine Diphono, December 2010,
by Liana Malandrenioti
(Translated by Demetrios Lekkas)
ALBUM REVIEW / CLASSICAL MUSIC
Pictures
for the sadness of the blond girls and of Eleni
This record release
comes as a pleasant surprise, not because of the fact that Thanassis Moraitis,
a composer, singer and researcher, presents here six musical works of symphonic
music, but for the mere fact that we have six instances of high quality
composing creation, jumping in to enrich the list of works of contemporary
Greek musical creation. Also, it is a pleasant surprise that top factors of
Greek music (the national team, someone remarked during the presentation of the
album) perform these beautiful but demanding compositions. He himself states
that he is self-taught in Western European music but who is going to believe
him? Who is going to believe that this intricate melodic fabric of solo
instruments is not a result of academic studies of composition, next to famous
teachers yet? If not, what we have here is a rare talent of a composer’s writing:
a writing that is clearly poetic and has internality, submission and rich in
musical ideas and pictures. The first opus, The
Song Cycle in poems by Costas Caryotakis, is scored for voice, string
orchestra and wind. Caryotakis’s poetic essence, immersed in that divine substance
transfiguring language to make it into poetry, is met with the sensitivity of
the composer and it turns into music. Priestess in this mass is soprano Sonia
Theodoridou, who, thoroughly tuned in with the poet’s deeper internal
dimension, delivers unparalleled instances of interpretation.
All six works of the
composer are built round a poetic vein, twined round a poetic centre clutching
the original inspiration and tying together all its parts harmonically. Meticulously
wrought, the instrumental fabric and the melodic lines of each instrument
contribute to righteously rendering the poetic style. The soloists give
outstanding performances; Vangelis Christopoulos on oboe in Elegy on poem “Spring”, Dimitris
Kotronakis on guitar in Amsterdam
Concerto, Renato Ripo on violoncello in Elegy for solo violoncello.
Also featured are
Ourania Lampropoulou on santouri, Socrates Sinopoulos on Constantinopolitan
fiddle, Xaris Lamprakis on ney, Vangelis Zografos and Vassilis Liarmakopoulos
on double bass, Sofia Lampropoulou on qanun and Takis Farazis on the
harpsichord. The contribution of the New Hellenic Quarter and of the Camerata –
Orchestra of Friends of Music led by conductor Alexandros Myrat has been
paramount in achieving the final superlative outcome.
The production comes
with a sixteen-page booklet (English and Greek); the painting on the cover is a
tableau by Spyros Vassiliou.
An album – gift to Greek
discography by composer Thanassis Moraitis.
***********************************
http://www.classical.net/ music/recs/reviews/e/ emi07553a.php / February 2011
Pictures for
the sadness of the blond girls and of Eleni
by
Raymond
Tuttle
A Cycle of
Songs on Poems
by Greek Poet Kostas Karyotakis1
(www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/c/cle60999a.php),
Kotronakis is deserving of international attention as well, with his
rock-solid
technique and musicality. Here, though, the string orchestra sounds a
little
shrill and dry; I can't tell if this is a function of the engineering,
or part
of their actual sound.
******************************
Newspaper “Eleutherotypia”, October
2010
The
Miracle of Thanássis
Moraítis
by Yórgos Chronás
(Translated by Yannis Goumas)
In
one of his poems, Pasolini defines music as “ambiguous”. Under the
murdered
poet’s “ambiguous” sky, I shall describe to you what I feel when I
listen to
this music, composed by this serious-minded man, Thanássis Moraítis.
In
the first CD, Kóstas Karyotákis comes to our ears, the composer’s
musical
preparation having cleansed us of having heard any other music, sounds
and
voices. Poems
written in 1919 and 1921,
and so chosen by Moraítis, bring to mind lyrics by John Lenon, Paul
McCartney,
Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchel, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Landscapes of
nature and
the soul. The composer’s Elegy in the poem
“Spring” (
The
second CD, Amsterdam Concerto, for guitar and
string orchestra, in three
parts, resembles an entry of people from Lorca, North African art, the
Far
East, the Low Countries and civilized
The
other two pieces in the second CD converse with the Sea and
the Fajum. Like
restoration of identity. Whatever
identity. The dulcimer flirts, it joins the cembalo, the cello and the contrabass. The quanun, the
lira of
Thanássis
Moraítis was fortunate in having such collaborators, and we with him.
The
result is masterly and we owe everything to him.
******************************
Newspaper “Eleutherotypia”, September 2010
by George Papadakis, composer-researcher
The
song cycle on poems by the Greek poet Kostas Karyotakis and the
“Amsterdam
Concerto” for guitar and string orchestra –two works by Thanassis
Moraitis recently
released by EMI Classics– both give us the opportunity to rejoice as
they show
that deeply felt music is still produced in our country.
That
such works are being created here in the present gloomy atmosphere we
are
experiencing is a comforting fact. And even more so as they contain
signs of
spiritual uplift elements having for the moment disappeared in this
part of the
world.
Similar
virtues characterize the remaining four works included in the two CD’s
devoted
to Moraitis’ compositions. Being exceptionally original and faithfully
respecting
our timeless traditions, they too display similar admirable virtues.
******************************
By Markos F. Dragoumis, musicologist,
October 2010
Pictures for the sadness of the blond girls and of Eleni (2 CD’s)
contain both vocal and instrumental music. The album opens with
four songs on poems by Kostas Karyotakis (1896-1928) preceded by an
instrumental introduction outlining the prevailing mood of the cycle.
The
pessimism of Karyotakis’ verse is given here an ideal rendering.
Moraitis with
unique sensibility identifies with the dark colours of the words and
his music
sounds as if dictated by the poet himself.
The remaining works are instrumental. In order to be appreciated they
demand intense concentration. Several hearings are necessary for them
to be
properly understood.
The song cycle is followed by an “Elegy”
for cello solo and a String
Quartet in two movements abounding with fresh and original ideas.
Equally extended and ambitious are the Concerto for
guitar and string orchestra and the two originally orchestrated chamber
works
of the second CD. In both, the bass and the cello are surrounded by
“exotic”
instruments such as the dulcimer and the harpsichord (“Quartet”,
“Stories of
grandma sea”) or the quanun, the lira of
******************************
Amsterdam
by Dimitris
Kotronakis, Guitar player
At first glance,
the writing of the Amsterdam Concerto is not considered
particularly “guitaristic”; the dense texture of the polyphony and the
apparent
complexity, place it on the top edge of the guitar technique, making it
almost
impossible to be performed. A more cautious approach, however, should
be enough
to convince us for its ultimate compatibility with the guitar idiom.
The comprehension of the
character of the instrument is perfect; the composition exploits a
large part
of the palette of its technical capabilities. Further more, it enriches
the
traditional range of techniques, with particularly interesting new
features.
Not limiting himself to basic
techniques such as linear arpeggios and scales, the composer uses and
enlarges
these techniques into a new form, which sometimes reminds us of Villa
Lobos or
Leo Brower, (yet without imitating any of them). This is because
Moraitis is
not concerned about the convenience of the performer, but aims at
serving and
promoting the music.
Simultaneously, one of the major
advantages of his music is the use of the polyphonic capabilities of
the
guitar. Unlike many well-known concertos where the soloist's part could
be
performed by monophonic instruments, here, extensive two and three
voices parts
are scattered all over the concerto.
The guitar becomes a protagonist
of the musical material; it neither accompanies nor participates as
another
member of the orchestra; it definitely leads the development of the
music.
Breathless, from first to last measure, there are phrases that could
stand out
even without the orchestra, as a standalone piece of music for solo
guitar.
With three cadenzas at the beginning of all three movements and at
least three
other smaller ones, the composer highlights the virtuosic and timbral
possibilities of this instrument.
This is a new and extremely exciting
work, a real challenge for any
soloist who dares to carry out the difficult and demanding
passages. It is
clearly one of the very few Greek concertos that are
worth of worldwide fame
and a place in the pantheon of music masterpieces of the late 20th
century.
Amsterdam
by Al Kunze
Magazine SOUNDBOARD, May 2011
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Sleep, the flower of flowers (Ode to Mother)
Label: INDIKTOS (
Review by George Monemvassitis
www.hridanos.gr / issue 3, December 2005
(Translated by Demetrios Lekkas)
Here is an illustrious production
for the record cabinet as well as for the bookshelf. An anthem to mother the
giver of life: plainly set but rich at the same time.
Guiding force in this
miracle is Thanassis Moraitis; besides giving birth to this beautiful idea and nurturing
the whole venture, he also wrote the lyrics to the songs, set them to music,
arranged them, instructed the performances and kept one of the songs for
himself.
This production (“Sleep,
flower of flowers – Ode to Mother”) combines and conjoins the arts of speech,
painting and music in a unique and manifestly novel fashion. Mother begets the pilgrimage
she deserves. Every human is her offspring and every human owes her a cordial
salutation. The celebrations of the foreseeable future hail mother too. The
gifts she deserves are numerous. Here is one she merits.
Each piece of art
primarily expresses the feelings of its creator. When the craftsman chisels
words, sounds and colours in his mind for mother, he furnishes them with a
tender caress. This caress lies in every aspect of this production: light,
cozy, untarnished and immaculate. The emotion is a given, and it is meant to
provoke. Words, pictures, sounds, all of them true, handmade and God-made, they
slip easily and effortlessly from the mind to the heart, to the soul. The texts
and the paintings, most of them known to the restless, are detectable by a mere
dandling scanning gaze only to slip straight into the heart.
The actually new item in
this wonderful news item is the songs themselves, the ones demanding the
listener’s attention. Thanassis Moraitis, under the dominance of a simplicity
and directness dictated by the speech –i.e the raison d’être– is truly making art. His tender decapentasyllabic
verse goes harmonically hand in hand with his musically stimulated imagination into
moulding sixteen lullabies of dream fabric.
The interpretations
gratify his visions and our own expectations. They don’t just all appear
wonderful, they are wonderful: from the aesthetics of the venture all the way
to its realization throughout.
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Newspaper ELEUTHEROTYPIA / JUNE 24, 2009
High art lullabies
by George Papadakis, composer-researcher
(Translated by Demetrios Lekkas)
Production: LYRA, 2009
Seventeen songs – lullabies – original compositions drawing inspiration from folk lullabies, whose spirit and character they pursue. As is noted in the publication, most Greek composers have been writing lullabies. But a whole cycle consisting solely of lullabies is something hard to come by.
… A work which, I daresay, is the crux of what this modest, diligent and gifted creator has given us in his career so far. I also dare to air the opinion that, as far as artistic value goes, this album is one of very few to stand out in this year’s (rubbish-ridden) Greek album output. All songs boast an exalted level from every angle. The rich and expressive lyrics and the pliable, most supple melody are joined in an admirable fashion manifesting the creator’s high caliber of knowledge, artistry and sensitivity.
…. Thanassis Moraitis pitted against this tradition and stood beside it not only unblemished but also in pride.
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