Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou’s collaborations with stage director Antonis Antypas have generated some of her most powerful music. “Medea”, like the earlier “Trojan Women”, comes out of this association. Created to accompany performances at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, the music vibrates with emotional intensity. Karaindrou gives her themes to a small ensemble, its sound-colours creating an ambiance both archaic and contemporary, as textures of santouri, ney, lyra and clarinets are combined and contrasted. Even with reduced instrumental forces the composer seems to imply an orchestral scope. Giorgos Cheimonas’ Modern Greek adaptation of Euripides provides the lyrics, movingly sung by a 15-piece chorus under the direction of Antonis Kontogeorgiou and, on two pieces, by the composer.
Euripides: Medea
Eleni Karaindrou
Eleni Karaindrous gemeinsame Projekte mit dem Theaterregisseur Antonis Antypas haben einige ihrer kraftvollsten Werke hervorgebracht. Medea entstammt dieser Verbindung genauso wie das ältere “Trojan Women”. Aufgenommen im antiken Theater von Epidaurus, vibriert die Musik hier förmlich vor emotionaler Intensität. Karaindrou gibt ihre Themen diesmal in die Hände eines kleinen Ensembles, dessen Klangfarben eine sowohl archaische als auch zeitgemäße Atmosphäre schaffen, indem die Texturen von Instrumenten wie Santouri, Ney, Lyra und Klarinetten mal miteinander verbunden, mal einander kontrastierend gegenübergestellt werden. Auch mit diesem reduzierten Instrumentarium suggeriert die Komponistin orchestrales Format. Giorgos Cheimonas hat Euripides’ Stoff für modernes Griechisch adaptiert – seine Lyrik wird hier bewegend von einem 15köpfigen Chor unter der Leitung von Antonis Kontogeorgiou gesungen – und in zwei Stücken auch von Eleni Karaindrou selbst.
- 1Argo's Voyage
01:41 - 2Ceremonial Procession
03:47 - 3On The Way To Exile
04:51 - 4The Haze Of Mania
01:14 - 5Medea's Lament I
01:46 - 6Woman Of Mourning
01:20 - 7Medea's Lament II
01:45 - 8Loss
01:43 - 9Backwards To Their Sources
03:40 - 10A Sinister Decision
03:55 - 11Love's Great Malevolence
03:22 - 12For The Sake Of A Greek's Words
01:51 - 13Do Not Kill Your Children
04:30 - 14An Unbearable Song
01:21 - 15All Hope Is Lost
03:24 - 16The Night Of Killing
02:48 - 17Silence
02:09
Eleni Karaindrou has created some beautiful music despite the dark undercurrents of the drama that it depicts. [...] Despite the fury and rage that unfurls as the plot unfolds, much of the music is calm and tranquil with Karaindrou’s tremendous orchestrations bringing together traditional instruments such as santori, ney and lyra with the more familiar sound of the clarinets. The voice of Karaindrou is heard on ‘Medea’s Lament I’ with its mournful lyrics of self-pity and despair and joined the female chorus under the direction of Antonis Kontogeorgiou for ‘Medea’s lament II’, and it is the blending of female voices with the gentle restraint of the instrumental pieces that combine to create a music that is quietly and enigmatically compelling and disturbing by turns. The depth of the music can often be at odds with the darkness of the play itself, and this lends a delicious tension to this beautiful album.
Nick Lea, Jazz Views
Fesselnd energiegeladen ist da das Spiel dieses Quartetts, kompakt und vorwärtspreschend, voller kleiner Explosionen im Part von Schlagzeuger Jarle Vespestad und mit untergründigem Rumoren in den Tönen des Basses von Mats Eilertsen. In einer völlig freien Improvisation schließlich, das gibt es hier auch, kann dieses Quartett dann noch einmal anders klingen. Neue und durchweg stimmige Facetten eines Sounds von Virtuosen der musikalischen Sinnlichkeit - mit Stücken, die immer noch einen unwiderstehlichen, sanften Sog entwickeln.
Roland Spiegel, BR-Klassik
Here, for a prodution of Giorgios Cheimonas’ modern greek adaption of Euripides’ ‘Medea’ is her gorgeously ritualistic musical journey through ‘Euripides’ bleak world of poetry’ [...] Karaindrou freely admits that its brooding, droning intensity wouldn’t necessarily cohere as drama on disc without producer Eicher reshaping it to do so. The result is quite beautiful and not much like any other music you name.
J.S. Buffalo News
This is music created for the Medea production put on by stage director Antonis Antypas, as performed at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. The Medea enacted there is Giorgos Cheimonas' adaptation from the original Euripides version of the play. Musically it has a timeless, exotic quality. Eleni Karaindrou utilizes a 15-member chorus; Eleni herself effectively contributes a solo part. Plus there is an 8-member chamber group with strong Greek and Eastern Mediterranean associations. The ensemble consists of three clarinets, ney, a player of the Constantinople lute (sounding much like an oud) and lyra, then cello, the santour, and the bendir.With these means Ms. Karaindrou creates a music of great evocative beauty, with its ancient scales and traditional instruments providing sound color and spatial punctuation, the vocals from chorus and soloists extending the sound and all-in-all creating a through-composed modern ambient pomo sort of work that is very identifiably Karaindrou-esque. Even in the purely instrumental passages the reflective, haunting melodiousness of Karaindrou comes through. It sounds less like ‘authentic’ ancient Greek-Eastern Mediterranean music as the idea of that as filtered by an ‘authentic’ Eleni Karaindrou sensibility. And it is one of her very strongest works at that. The performances are excellent, the sound all you'd expect from ECM
Grego Applegate, Gapplegate Music Review
The relatively short pieces linger long in the mind, and in the case of the all too brief opener ‘Argos Voyage’, are quite simply haunting with the sound of the Constantinople lute supplied by Sokratis Sinopoulos. [...] collective voicings permeate the wonderfully joyous ‘Backwards to their sources’. It is worth pointing out that the vocal polyphonies that are so endearing on this release are inspired by musical encounters throughout the Mediterranean including Corsica where collective singing is revered. In a wider context, the music serves as an act of resistance in a time of economic and financial onslaught.
Tim Stenhouse, UK Vibe
Using only eight musicians, three of them clarinetists and three of them playing Eastern instruments that sound very exotic to Western ears, Karaindrou has created a score that blends an ambient classical sound with modes and feelings of Ancient Greek music. It is as if the musicians of Euripides’s day slept for 2,500 years, woke up, and began blending their aesthetic with some of the more modern sounds they hear around them. In addition to the musicians, Karaindrou uses a women’s chorus and herself as a solo vocalist […] Perhaps much of the music’s effectiveness is due to the recorded sound, which has an extraordinary depth to is so that all the lower notes played by the various instruments (but particularly by the cello) reverberate in an unusual way. […] this is music that speaks to something very deep inside of us, strange music that is (for lack of a better term) very strongly feminine, and perhaps because of this, music that summarizes the psyche and feelings of Medea better than any other I’ve ever heard.
Lynn Renée Bayly, Fanfare
Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou’s collaborations with stage director Antonis Antypas have generated some of her most powerful music. Medea, like the earlier Trojan Women, comes out of this association. Created to accompany performances at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, the music vibrates with emotional intensity. Karaindrou gives her themes to a small ensemble, its sound-colours creating an ambiance both archaic and contemporary, as textures of santouri, ney, lyra and clarinets are combined and contrasted. Even with reduced instrumental forces the composer seems to imply an orchestral scope. Giorgos Cheimonas’ Modern Greek adaptation of Euripides provides the lyrics, movingly sung by a 15-piece chorus under the direction of Antonis Kontogeorgiou and, on two pieces, by the composer.
Euripides’ play, first staged in 431 BC, counts amongst the darkest of the dramas of antiquity, a harrowing tale of betrayal, rage, retribution, madness, and infanticide. When Jason abandons Medea to marry Glauce, daughter of King Creon, and thereby strengthen his political influence, Medea responds with a fury that knows no bounds. In a programme note for the Epidaurus production, Antonis Antypas writes “Medea’s divine lineage [in Greek mythology she was the niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios] and preoccupation with the heroic code of honour gird her and put the knife in her hand. Her passion for Jason has humanized her, but when Jason’s betrayal reveals her sacrifice to have been in vain, she regains her divine stature and the right to punish her mortal husband for his hubris.”
Karaindrou counterpoints the plot with music that builds tension also through restraint and silences. Already the pulsing of the bendir on “Ceremonial Procession” and the baleful melodies for ney and clarinet seem to anticipate the misfortunes ahead. The themes passed from clarinet to cello in “On The Way To Exile” are laden with melancholy. In her liner note Eleni praises the commitment of the players, “travelling with me through Euripdes’ bleak world of poetry, unfolding their song, compassionate toward the play’s characters.” They convey “sounds of the Orient, Greek but also global” to underline the drama of the barbarian Medea, “whose love for the Greek Jason made her renounce her homeland, father and mother.”
Eleni Karaindrou’s is the first voice heard on the album, singing Medea’s laments. Thereafter the chorus take up the tale, enumerating the consequences of “love’s great malevolence”.
*
Eleni Karaindrou studied piano and musical theory at the Athens Hellenic Conservatory, history and archaeology at the University of Athens, and ethnomusicology and orchestration at the Sorbonne and the Scuola Cantorum in Paris.
Since 1975 she has composed music for numerous films, theatre plays and television productions. Collaborating most often with Greek directors – including the late Theo Angelopoulos – she has also worked with Chris Marker, Jules Dassin, Margarethe von Trotta and others. Karaindrou has written music for many plays staged by Antonis Antypas, in a wide range of idioms, from Euripides to Harold Pinter (Antypas and Karaindrou worked closely with Harold Pinter in Greek adaptations of his work). The recently released Concert in Athens also included music written for Antypas’ productions of Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee.
Karaindrou has received awards including the State Music Award (Greece) for her music for Eternity and a Day, the Dimitris Mitropoulos Award for her music for theatre (1994-96), and the Fellini Award from Europa Cinema, Italy. In 2002 she received the Golden Cross of the Order of Honor from the Greek president, for her life’s work. In 2004 she was nominated for the European Film Award for her music for The Weeping Meadow, which was also Oscar-nominated.
Eleni Karaindrou has been an ECM recording artist since 1991. Her albums for the label include Music for Films, The Suspended Step of the Stork, Ulysses’ Gaze, Eternity and a Day, Trojan Women, The Weeping Meadow, Elegy of the Uprooting, Dust of Time, and Concert In Athens.
Medea was recorded at Studio Sierra in Athens in June 2011, and mixed and edited by producer Manfred Eicher and engineer Giorgos Karyotis in June 2013.
Euripides’ play, first staged in 431 BC, counts amongst the darkest of the dramas of antiquity, a harrowing tale of betrayal, rage, retribution, madness, and infanticide. When Jason abandons Medea to marry Glauce, daughter of King Creon, and thereby strengthen his political influence, Medea responds with a fury that knows no bounds. In a programme note for the Epidaurus production, Antonis Antypas writes “Medea’s divine lineage [in Greek mythology she was the niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios] and preoccupation with the heroic code of honour gird her and put the knife in her hand. Her passion for Jason has humanized her, but when Jason’s betrayal reveals her sacrifice to have been in vain, she regains her divine stature and the right to punish her mortal husband for his hubris.”
Karaindrou counterpoints the plot with music that builds tension also through restraint and silences. Already the pulsing of the bendir on “Ceremonial Procession” and the baleful melodies for ney and clarinet seem to anticipate the misfortunes ahead. The themes passed from clarinet to cello in “On The Way To Exile” are laden with melancholy. In her liner note Eleni praises the commitment of the players, “travelling with me through Euripdes’ bleak world of poetry, unfolding their song, compassionate toward the play’s characters.” They convey “sounds of the Orient, Greek but also global” to underline the drama of the barbarian Medea, “whose love for the Greek Jason made her renounce her homeland, father and mother.”
Eleni Karaindrou’s is the first voice heard on the album, singing Medea’s laments. Thereafter the chorus take up the tale, enumerating the consequences of “love’s great malevolence”.
*
Eleni Karaindrou studied piano and musical theory at the Athens Hellenic Conservatory, history and archaeology at the University of Athens, and ethnomusicology and orchestration at the Sorbonne and the Scuola Cantorum in Paris.
Since 1975 she has composed music for numerous films, theatre plays and television productions. Collaborating most often with Greek directors – including the late Theo Angelopoulos – she has also worked with Chris Marker, Jules Dassin, Margarethe von Trotta and others. Karaindrou has written music for many plays staged by Antonis Antypas, in a wide range of idioms, from Euripides to Harold Pinter (Antypas and Karaindrou worked closely with Harold Pinter in Greek adaptations of his work). The recently released Concert in Athens also included music written for Antypas’ productions of Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee.
Karaindrou has received awards including the State Music Award (Greece) for her music for Eternity and a Day, the Dimitris Mitropoulos Award for her music for theatre (1994-96), and the Fellini Award from Europa Cinema, Italy. In 2002 she received the Golden Cross of the Order of Honor from the Greek president, for her life’s work. In 2004 she was nominated for the European Film Award for her music for The Weeping Meadow, which was also Oscar-nominated.
Eleni Karaindrou has been an ECM recording artist since 1991. Her albums for the label include Music for Films, The Suspended Step of the Stork, Ulysses’ Gaze, Eternity and a Day, Trojan Women, The Weeping Meadow, Elegy of the Uprooting, Dust of Time, and Concert In Athens.
Medea was recorded at Studio Sierra in Athens in June 2011, and mixed and edited by producer Manfred Eicher and engineer Giorgos Karyotis in June 2013.
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