Eleni Karaindrou: David

Kim Kashkashian, Camerata Orchestra, Alexandros Myrat

Eleni Karaindrou: David
Release date: 18.11.2016 ECM 2221
CD18,90 €add to cart
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The stage cantata David features Eleni Karaindrou’s music for a unique piece of Aegean drama, a verse play with words by an unknown 18th century poet from the island of Chios. Its text (first published only in 1979), invites a musical response and Greek composer Karaindrou rises splendidly  to the challenge, imaginatively moving between past and present  in her settings for  mezzo-soprano and baritone singers,  instrumental soloists,  choir and orchestra.  Kim Kashkashian’s evocative viola against strings may trigger associations with Karaindrou’s acclaimed writing for Ulysses’ Gaze. The music also draws inspiration from the world of baroque opera as singers  Irini Karagianni and Tassis Christoyannopoulos are brought to the foreground.  Karaindrou’s David is a work of changing music colours . Recorded live at the Athens Megaron, it was edited and mixed by Manfred Eicher and Nikos Espialdis for CD release.
Die Kantate David enthält Eleni Karaindrous Musik für ein besonderes Stück aus der Ägeischen Theaterliteratur, ein Vers-Spiel eines anonymen Dichters von der Insel Chios aus dem 18. Jahrhundert. Der Text (der erst 1979 erstmals publiziert wurde) verlangt förmlich nach einer musikalischen Umsetzung, und die griechische Komponistin wird der Herausforderung glänzend gerecht, in dem sie sich mit ihren Arrangements für Mezzosopran und Bariton, Instrumentalsolisten, Chor und Orchester einfallsreich zwischen der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart hin und her bewegt. Kim Kashkashians effektvoll gegen die übrigen Streicher gesetzte Viola-Stimme ruft Assoziationen an Karaindrous vielgerühmte Kompositionsarbeit für den Theo-Angelopoulos-Film Ulysses’ Gaze  (Der Blick des Odysses) wach. Die Musik hier zieht zudem Inspiration aus der Welt der Barockoper, wenn die Sänger Irini Karagianni und Tassis Christoyannopoulos in den Vordergrund treten. Karaindrous David ist ein Werk ständiger wechselnder musikalischer Farben. Live in der Athener Megaron-Konzerthalle mitgeschnitten, wurde es von Manfred Eicher und Nikos Espialidis für die CD-Veröffentlichung editiert und abgemischt.
Featured Artists
  • Eleni Karaindrou Ensemble
  • Irini KaragianniMezzo-Soprano
  • Tassis ChristoyannopoulosBaritone
  • Kim KashkashianViola
  • Vangelis ChristopoulosOboe
  • Stella GadediFlute
  • Marie-Cécile BoulardClarinet
  • Sonia PiskBassoon
  • Vangelis SkourasFrench Horn
  • Socratis AnthisTrumpet
  • Maria BildeaHarp
  • Renato RipoVioloncello
  • Katerina KtonaHarpsichord
  • ERT Choir
  • Antonis KontogeorgiouChoirmaster
  • Camerata Orchestra
  • Alexandros MyratConductor
Recorded

November 2010, Megaron (Hall of the friends of music), Athens

Original Release Date

18.11.2016

  • 1Overture
    (Eleni Karaindrou)    04:13
  • 2Repentance
    (Eleni Karaindrou)    01:22
  • 3Compassion
    (Eleni Karaindrou)    01:05
  • 4Devils
    (Eleni Karaindrou, Traditional)    04:41
  • 5David's Entrance
    (Eleni Karaindrou)    01:52
  • 6The Good Things In Life
    (Eleni Karaindrou, Traditional)    03:54
  • 7When I See
    (Eleni Karaindrou, Traditional)    05:45
  • 8David’s Lament
    (Eleni Karaindrou, Traditional)    07:43
  • 9Repentance, var.
    (Eleni Karaindrou)    01:22
  • 10Psaltes
    (Eleni Karaindrou, Traditional)    02:41
  • 11Procession
    (Eleni Karaindrou)    02:42
  • 12Angel
    (Eleni Karaindrou, Traditional)    02:07
  • 13Finale
    (Eleni Karaindrou, Traditional)    04:55
The stage cantata David features Eleni Karaindrou’s music for a unique piece of Aegean drama, a verse play with words by an unknown 18th century poet from the island of Chios.
Its text was first published only in 1979, and in the first edition writer Kostas Georgousopoulos noted, “We are in the presence of an important work whose language, structure and genre enrich our theatrical tradition.” A great number of David’s verses were written to be sung and it is believed that the type of music used would have been influenced by Italian baroque melodrama, medieval mysteries, and staged oratorios such as the Azioni sacre of the Habsburg court, based on religious themes which flourished at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th.
 
Greek composer Karaindrou has taken all of this into consideration as she rises to the challenge of the text, imaginatively moving between past and present in her settings for singers Irini Karagianni and Tassis Christoyannopoulos, instrumental soloists, and choir and orchestra under the direction of, respectively, Antonis Kontogeorgiou and Alexandros Myrat. Karaindrou’s David is a work of constantly changing musical colours, making inspired use of her now-familiar cast of players including oboist Vangelis Christopoulos, french horn player Vangelis Skouras, flutist, Stella Gadedi, harpist Maria Bildea, trumpeter Sokratis Anthis, cellist Renato Ripo, clarinettist Marie-Cécile Boulard, and bassoonist Sonia Pisk. All of them have made telling contributions to earlier Karaindrou discs, as has guest Kim Kashkashian, whose evocative viola against strings may trigger associations with Eleni’s acclaimed writing for Theo Angelopoulos’s masterpiece Ulysses’ Gaze. Eleni recalls that the late film director often cited David as a favourite work. It was first performed in the Homer Cultural Centre of Chios in 1980, and composition of the music had been influenced by recent events. The section entitled “When I See” is dedicated to the memory of Maria Callas and the music was, says Eleni, “born from the emotional power of an image – a memory of ashes, scattered from the deck of a ship…merging with the swirling waters of the Aegean Sea.”
 
Indeed the movement of the sea seems an integral component of much of the music here. Time Magazine’s description of Eleni’s music comes to mind: “Dark and brooding, redolent of rich red wine and the salty brine of the sea. At once plaintive and lyrical…” But not exclusively: there is also gleefully malevolent humour in the operatic baritone of Christoyannopoulos on “Devils”, promising to “perplex both wise men and illiterate…make youth lose its mind, force old men from their shells.”
 
In “The Good Things In Life”, Karagianni sings of the little that can be retained on life’s journey: “Of all the good that passes by / may hearts latch on the residue /And other virtues let go /so calm and slow.” The unknown poet of Chios reminds his readers that blooms will wither and die…
 
David was revived for a three-day celebration of Eleni Karaindrou’s work at the Megaron in Athens in November 2010, from which the double album and DVD Concert in Athens were also drawn. In performance the musical movements of David were integrated into readings from the Greek text. For CD release producer Manfred Eicher shaped, as Eleni puts it, “a new musical painting” from the material, mixing and editing the music together with recording engineer Nikos Espialidis in Athens in March 2016.

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