Maurice Ravel / Cinq Mélodies Populaires Grecques

Cinq Mélodies Populaires Grecques

It isn't hard to figure out why singers -- and pianists, to be sure -- love Maurice Ravel's Cinq mélodies populaires grecques (Five Greek Folksongs) as much as they do. The texts, which were translated from the Greek originals into French by Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi, are charmingly short and pithy, and the music to which Ravel has set them is, despite a vague Mediterranean flavor, pure Ravel -- the kind of rich, modified-diatonic music that might to an uninitiated ear seem "impressionist" but really has an objectivity of line and a clarity, even thinness, of texture that marks it as something else altogether. The five songs were composed from 1904 to 1906; Ravel later orchestrated two of them, and the remaining three were orchestrated by another hand, making it possible to perform the entire cycle in the concert rather than the recital hall.

The Cinq mélodies populaires grecques are: 

1. Chanson de la mariée (Song of the Bride)  Ξύπνησε πετροπέρδικα

2. Là-bas, vers église (Over by the Church)  Κάτω στον Άγιο Σίδερο

3. Quel galant m'est comparable (Which Gallant Compares with Me)  Ποιος ασίκης σαν και μένα

4. Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques (Song of the Lentisk Collectors)  Μ´άγγελος είσαι, μάτια μου

5. Tout Gai! (Be Gay! -- these days often translated less literally) Γιαρούμπι,Σμυρνέικο

In the first song, a man asks his bride-to-be to arise and enjoy the morning with him; he offers that the two might be married, so that their families might be as close as they are. The music is moderately paced and is in G minor, though more often than not Ravel leaves out the third and we hear only an open fifth. The piano makes a quiet, arpeggiated rustle as the singer calls up a melody that over the entire course of the song covers only the span of a minor sixth (from G up to E flat) -- Ravel proves yet again that excess is not needed to create mood and inflection.

The texture of No. 2 is by comparison much stiller, but in the third song, a burst of machismo during which the singer boasts of his manliness by virtue of sword and pistol, we are treated to some rowdiness, both from the singer and from the accompaniment.

You might describe "Song of the Lentisk Collectors" as a cross between the steady, registrally-shifting chords of the second song and the flowing arpeggios of the first, though still that would but poorly describe the happenings of this gentle, Lydian mode-inflected number. A raucous outburst might be expected for the last song (it does bear the enthusiastic title "Tout Gai!" after all), but that's not really Ravel's way, and he keeps things plainly and firmly in check (the accompaniment, for instance, remains at the piano dynamic throughout), even as the singer happily explains how attractive the dancing legs are! Midway through the song the text dissolves into a good-natured "tra la la" that takes us to the end.

Irma Kolassi, greek mezzo of armenian-french origins, occupies a special place in

the hearts of melomanes and in the history of singing. She was born in Greece in the 28th of May 1918. She studied piano and singing in Athens and then in Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome. After 1949 she moved to Paris and straight forward developed an internationnal career (Europe and N. America) mainly focused on the refined interpretation of French music (mostly Ravel, Debussy, Chausson,Faure etc. ), oratorio and lied. She gave the world premieres of works by several french composers (D.Milhaud, A. Honegger, H. Andrienssen). She is admired for her soft, velvet timbre; her even, instrumental voice; her ability to construct beautiful, long phrases; her impeccable diction and noble intonation; the frugal use of artifacts. Kolassi has been honoured with the highest distinctions of the French State and cultural institutions. She lived and teached in Paris until the 28th of March 2012 .

Ίρμα Κολάση, ήταν Αρμενογαλλικής καταγωγής. Γεννήθηκε στην Αθήνα στις 28 Μαΐου του 1918[1] και πέθανε στο Παρίσι στις 27 Μαρτίου του 2012, στα 94 της χρόνια. Δεν εμφανίστηκε ποτέ σε μελοδραματική Σκηνή, αν και διέθετε όλα τα προσόντα. Έτσι, οι πολλές και σημαντικές επιτυχίες της οφείλονται σε ρεσιτάλ, συναυλίες και δισκογραφικές εμφανίσεις. Εύστοχα χαρακτηρίστηκε ως η Ελληνίδα Βικτόρια ντε λος Άνχελες.

Περισσότερα ΕΔΩ

Πέντε Ελληνικές Λαϊκές Μελωδίες 

O Μορίς Ραβέλ (Maurice Ravel, 1875-1937) συνέθεσε τις Πέντε ελληνικές λαϊκές μελωδίες (Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques) για φωνή και πιάνο μεταξύ των ετών 1904 και 1906. Ο Ραβέλ γνώρισε τις ελληνικές αυτές μελωδίες από έκδοση που κυκλοφόρησε στο Παρίσι το 1903, σε συνεργασία του γλωσσολόγου Hubert Pernot και του συνθέτη Paul Le Flem. Πρώτη καταγραφή των παραδοσιακών αυτών τραγουδιών πραγματοποιήθηκε από τον Pernot, που μετέβη ως μέλος επίσημης αποστολής του γαλλικού Υπουργείου Παιδείας στην τουρκοκρατούμενη Χίο κατά τα έτη 1898 και 1899 και κατέγραψε 114 τραγούδια. Από αυτή τη συλλογή ο Ραβέλ επέλεξε τέσσερα τραγούδια (Ξύπνησε Πετροπέρδικα, Κάτω στον Άγιο Σίδερο, Άγγελος είσαι μάτια μου, Γιαρούμπι), προσέθεσε τη μελωδία Ποιος ασίκης και επεξεργάστηκε τις Πέντε Ελληνικές Μελωδίες ως σύνολο.

Ο Ραβέλ συνέθεσε κι ένα έκτο ελληνικό τραγούδι στα 1909, το «Τρίπατος», αφιερωμένο στην τραγουδίστρια Marguerite Babaϊan. Συνολικά ο συνθέτης εναρμόνισε εννέα παραδοσιακές ελληνικές μελωδίες, οι τρεις εκ των οποίων δεν εκδόθηκαν ποτέ και τα χειρόγραφά τους πιθανότατα χάθηκαν.

Στις Πέντε ελληνικές λαϊκές μελωδίες υπάρχουν ευδιάκριτα τα ραβελιανά αρμονικά στοιχεία που συμμαχούν με τον τυπικά λαϊκό χαρακτήρα των τραγουδιών. Ο συνθέτης συνενώνει με ιδιαίτερη έμπνευση τους αρχαιοελληνικούς τρόπους που επιζούν στην ελληνική δημοτική μουσική με τη δυτική αρμονία των ημερών του. Σύντομα στη διάρκειά τους αλλά νευρώδη και με καθαρές μελωδικές γραμμές, τα τραγούδια αυτά αποτελούν ιδιαίτερη πρόκληση για κάθε ερμηνευτή.

Ένα μικρό αν και σημαντικότατο μέρος του έργου του Νίκου Σκαλκώτα, αποτελούν τονικές και τροπικές συνθέσεις. Σ’ αυτές ανήκουν οι περίφημοι «36 ελληνικοί χοροί για ορχήστρα», το λαϊκό μπαλέτο «Η θάλασσα» και ορισμένα ακόμη έργα, στα οποία ο συνθέτης μ’ έναν ιδιαίτερα ξεχωριστό και προσωπικό τρόπο, εκθέτει στοιχεία της ελληνικής δημοτικής μουσικής παράδοσης. Οι συνθέσεις αυτές γράφτηκαν κατά την τρίτη δημιουργική του περίοδο, στα χρόνια 1946-1949.

Το 1962, σε ώριμη πλέον ηλικία ο διακεκριμένος συνθέτης Γιάννης Κωνσταντινίδης, αποσύρθηκε οριστικά από τον χώρο του μουσικού θεάτρου και της ελαφράς μουσικής, στον οποίο, αν και βρισκόταν για βιοποριστικούς λόγους, διέγραψε μια εξαιρετική πορεία.

Στην περίοδο αυτή, ασχολήθηκε με το κλασσικό του έργο το οποίο εμπνεύστηκε από το δημοτικό τραγούδι, εμπλουτίζοντας την Εθνική Σχολή με έργα απαράμιλλης αισθητικής , ιδιαιτέρως αξιόλογους θύλακες μελωδιών της ελληνικής μουσικής κληρονομιάς.

1. "Chanson de la marié"

Awake, awake, my darling partridge,

Open to the morning your wings.

Three beauty marks; my heart is on fire!

See the ribbon of gold that I bring

To tie round your hair.

If you want, my beauty, we shall marry!

In our two families, everyone is related!

2. "Là-bas, vers l'église"

Yonder, by the church,

By the church of Ayio Sidero,

The church, o blessed Virgin,

The church of Ayio Costanndino,

There are gathered,

Assembled in numbers infinite,

The world's, o blessed Virgin,

All the world's most decent folk!

3. "Quel Galant m'est comparable"

What gallant compares with me,

Among those one sees passing by?

Tell me, lady Vassiliki!

See, hanging on my belt,

My pistols and my curved sword.

And it is you whom I love!

4. "Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques"

O joy of my soul,

joy of my heart,

treasure which is so dear to me,

joy of my soul and heart,

you whom I love ardently,

you are more handsome than an angel.

O when you appear,

angel so sweet,

Before our eyes,

Like a fine, blond angel,

under the bright sun,

Alas! all of our poor hearts sigh!

5. "Tout gai!"

Everyone is joyous, joyous!

Beautiful legs, tireli, which dance,

Beautiful legs; even the dishes are dancing!

Tra la la, la la la!

Iannis Xenakis - Synaphaï

Iannis Xenakis-Synaphaï

There's the "Synaphaï" in the Wonderful World of Music of Iannis Xenakis, . It's a kind of concert (1969) for  the piano and the  orchestra, with shared roles ... equally shared to the piano and other instruments of the orchestra. And  surely indeed,  it allows the piano, highlighting its power, to balance the families of orchestral groups and the complicated playing  of percussion instruments. It is played even in Japan !!!!

We highly  recommend it.
[Translation: Mary Grammatikaki]

Γιάννης Ξενάκης-Synaphaï

Στον υπέροχο μουσικό κόσμο του Ιάννη Ξενάκη, υπάρχει το "Synaphaï". Ένα είδος κοντσέρτου (1969) για πιάνο και ορχήστρα, με μοιρασμένους τους ρόλους ... ισότιμα, στο πιάνο και στα άλλα όργανα της ορχήστρας. Και μάλιστα, δίνει τη δυνατότητα στο πιάνο, προβάλλοντας αρκετή δύναμη, να εξισορροπήσει τις οικογένειες των ορχηστρικών ομάδων και τα περίπλοκα ''παιχνίδια'' κρουστών. Το παίζουν ακόμα και στην Ιαπωνία!!!!

Σας το προτείνω.

Synaphaï

Synaphaï, for piano & 86 musicians, written in 1969.

 The Royan Festival, located in the west of France just north of Bordeaux, and dedicated primarily to new music, began in 1964 and continued for several years until it was supplanted by other venues. Between 1966 and 1971, Iannis Xenakis was a regular guest at the festival, and he composed three quite remarkable orchestral scores to be premiered there. Synaphaï, the last of these, was written in 1969 but not performed until the 1971 festival. This piece also happens to be his first in the concerto genre. It is not, however, a traditional virtuoso showpiece. The solo piano is certainly featured, and the music is fiercely difficult, as one would expect, but the composer's approach is to treat the piano as a voice of equal weight with the other orchestral sections. The fact that it is out front, and that there is only one player rather than a whole section, does tend to draw the spotlight toward the pianist, but the music itself is built from interwoven strands rather than a narrative featuring the soloist in the first person or a dramatic dialogue pitting piano against orchestra. Carrying on, but retreating somewhat, from the unusual spatial placement of the musicians in his two earlier works, Terretektorh and Nomos Gamma, which scatter the players amongst the audience, Synaphaï mixes the players up, but keeps them all on the stage. The piano is placed down in front, no doubt for the practical reason that that is the best place for it to be in order to be heard. (Besides, hard-working soloists do not want to be stuck off in the back somewhere!)

The title means "connexities," and Xenakis makes use of this notion by trying to get the pianist to play in as smooth a manner as possible, to sound, in other words, like a wind or string instrument. He complicates the business by giving the player as many as ten lines to play at once. Set against that are "dry" or "hard" elements, adding rhythmic drive to the music. The piece proceeds in a continuous fashion--there are no movements--with the liquid piano textures overlapping those of the winds and strings. Later on, static elements (grinding string sounds, rearticulated pitches in the brass) are set in juxtaposition against the more directional, flowing music of the piano. It is only at the very end that the percussion enters, finishing the piece off with a dramatic drum roll, a similar, though much compressed, gesture to the conclusion of Nomos Gamma. The ability of the piano to project enough power to balance the families of orchestral groups, and its capacity for playing both dense, intricate as well as percussive, rhythmic material made it an ideal instrument for Xenakis's first foray into the concerto realm. He would, in fact, compose two more piano concertos over the next two decades, and only after that would he venture beyond to other instruments.



Official Website HERE
Wikipedia HERE
Βικιπαίδεια (βιογραφία) ΕΔΩ

Vasilios Gaitanos sings/Greek Music

VASILIOS GAITANOS

COMMENTARY BY: HARRY MARK PETRAKIS

Some dozen years ago while traveling across the timeless landscape of Greece, I spent a few days in the lovely seaport town of Agios Nikolaos on the Island of Crete. One night in the town I discovered a peerless Taverna called, “Cafe of the Sunset,” owned by a comely young woman called Niki with long hair as black as a raven’s wing and her handsome young husband, Giorgios.

Late in the evening when those tourists who remained were joined by young town people, we pushed the tables aside to prepare for the music of Lenos on the bouzouki, Michali on the clarinet and Panayotis who sang in a throaty, vibrant voice when they began to play, the Cafe burst into life.

With our blood already warmed by wine, the felicitous music liberated our spirits and we leaped up to dance. Niki would lead us with zest and grace, her dark hair tossing about her cheeks and shoulders. As the dancing grew wilder she’d kick off her shoes and dance barefooted as the nymphs of legend must have dance in the sylvan groves. We circled her like a bevy of satyrs and then whirled off alone, still linked by the music and the Greek night.

These animated celebration glowed in my memory for years although I never returned to Agios Nikolaos. Yet, only a few years ago, that marvelous experience was renewed for me, not in Greece, but in Chicago, when I visited Deni’s Den for the first time and first heard Vasilli play his stunning piano. Late in the evening, sparked by the music, I was impelled to leap up and dance again. The small miracle of finding a luminous particle of Greece in Chicago was so mesmerizing that long after midnight, when I finally emerged onto Clark Street, I eerily expected to find myself on a street in Greece.

I have returned to Deni’s Den many times since that first visit and each time eagerly wait for the music. The leader of the Deni’s Den Ensemble is Vasilli Gaitanos, a former merchant sailor, a brilliant pianist and singer who toured the world with the great composer, Mikis Theodorakis.

There is the superb bouzouki player, Alex Galas, who first heard and became fascinated with that instrument when he was eleven. There is George Papadatos whose drums resound like Olympian thunder and Vassili Rousis whose guitar provides the lightning and Ares Marmantas on a sparking classical guitar. Their good friend and the marvelous arranger of their music is Spyros Panaoussis.

Listening to Vasilli and the Ensemble play and sing for a few hours is the next best thing to visiting Greece. They play buoyant love songs and the darker songs of unrequited love and jealousy, songs of freedom sung by warriors fighting their oppressors, haunting songs of wanderings and exile from the native land. Their music returns me to the sights and sounds of the Greek journeys, the resonant bells of churches, the flutes of shepherds, the laughter of village wedding, the ruins of temples with rising in the wind at Delphi.

And always the music evokes for me the joyous celebrations in villages, towns and mountain glades, unchanged in passion and vigor since the wine – dark time of Homer.

Yet, a tragic dement is present in the music of Greece, as well, for the perimeter of joy is a melancholy bred into the bone and blood of Greeks through four centuries of slavery. It was only 150 years ago when the Greeks, after a bitter ten year revolution, emerged free from those sorrowful centuries. When that emotion Greek call “stenochoria”, comes hauntingly through the songs and music, even those who are not Greeks can sense the timeless grief.

“Cafe of the Sunset”… “Deni’s Den”, they are enclosures that exist a world apart and yet, as Euripides says, home is where the heart is, and joy is where the music conquers loneliness and fills one with the urge to sing and dance. That zest for living is embodied in an old Greek song:

“Even with many trials, life is sweet.

And anyone who wants Charos to come

must be mad.”

This splendid album records many songs played by Vasilli Gaitanos and the Ensemble, so those unable to visit Deni’s Den (This is closed.) will be able to hear their magic. Perhaps understand, as well the miracle of the small enduring land that reveals in its literature, art and music a soul that must inspire men and women everywhere for as long as the earth endures.

Harry Mark Petrakis

Chicago, Illinois

October 25, 1981

In 1981, Vasilli Gaitanos released a disc with Greek representative songs of M.Theodorakis, M.Hadjidakis, Chr.Leontis, Th.Mikroutsikos and St.Xarchakos. To download the CD Vassilis Gaitanos click HERE
  1. The Cross of the South
  2. The Knife
  3. The Fairy Tale
  4. Drapetsona
  5. Bright Day
  6. Those Crazy Boys
  7. Thessaloniki
  8.  Tha Road is Long
  9. A Day in May
10. You See My Brother

ΣΧΟΛΙΑΣΜΟΣ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΝ HARRY MARK ΠΕΤΡΑΚΗΣ

Μερικές δεκάδες χρόνια πριν, ενώ ταξίδευα στο άχρονο Ελληνικό τοπίο, πέρασα μερικές ημέρες στην όμορφη παραλιακή πόλη στο λιμάνι του Αγίου Νικολάου, στο νησί της Κρήτης. Μια νύχτα στην πόλη ανακάλυψα μια απαράμιλλη ταβέρνα, με τ’ όνομα το "Καφενείο το Δειλινό», που ανήκε σε μια νεαρή γυναίκα. Το όνομά της ήταν Νίκη με μακριά μαλλιά, μαύρα σαν φτερό από ένα κοράκι, δίπλα της ο όμορφος νεαρός σύζυγός της, ο Γιώργος.

Αργά το βράδυ, όταν κάποιοι τουρίστες οι οποίοι παρέμειναν ενώθηκαν με τους νέους της πόλης, σκουντήσαμε τα τραπέζια στην άκρη για να γίνει χώρος για τη μουσική. Ο Λίνος στο μπουζούκι, ο Μιχάλης στο κλαρίνο και ο Παναγιώτης με την τραχιά, δυνατή φωνή, όταν άρχισαν να παίζουν, στο καφενείο «μπήκε» η ζωή.

Με το αίμα μας, ήδη κορωμένο από το κρασί, η εύστοχη μουσική απελευθέρωσε το πνεύμα μας και στήσαμε το χορό. Η Νίκη, μας οδηγούσε με μεράκι και χάρη, τινάζοντας τα σκούρα μαλλιά της στα μάγουλα και τους ώμους της. Καθώς ο χορός αγρίευε η γυναίκα πέταξε τα  παπούτσια της χορεύοντας ξυπόλητη, όπως οι νύμφες του θρύλου όταν χόρευαν στα δάση και τους ελαιώνες. Κάναμε ένα κύκλο γύρω της σαν σάτυροι, μια κοντά και μια στροβιλιζόμαστε μακριά, αφήνοντάς την μόνη, όλοι μπλεγμένοι με τη μουσική και την Ελληνική βραδιά.

Αυτή η δυνατή εικόνα έλαμπε στη μνήμη μου για χρόνια, αν και ποτέ, δεν επέστρεψα στον  Άγιο Νικόλαο. Ωστόσο, μόλις πριν από λίγα χρόνια, η θαυμάσια εμπειρία ανανεώθηκε για μένα, όχι στην Ελλάδα, αλλά και στο Σικάγο, όταν επισκέφθηκα «Τη φωλιά του Ντένι» για πρώτη φορά και για πρώτη φορά είδα τον Βασίλη να παίξει εντυπωσιακά στο πιάνο. Αργά το βράδυ, πυροδοτήθηκα ξανά από τη μουσική, με ένα άλμα πετάχτηκα προς τα πάνω και χόρεψα πάλι. Το μικρό θαύμα να συναντήσω το φως της Ελλάδας στο Σικάγο ήταν τόσο μαγευτικό, ώστε πολύ μετά τα μεσάνυχτα, όταν τελικά περπατούσα στην Clark Street, παράξενα περίμενα να βρω τον εαυτό μου σε ένα δρόμο στην Ελλάδα.

Στο σπίτι του Βασίλη και Δήμητρας Γαϊτάνου στην Αθήνα

Έχω επιστρέψει στη «Φωλιά του Ντένι» πολλές φορές από εκείνη την πρώτη επίσκεψη και κάθε φορά περιμένω με ανυπομονησία για τη μουσική. Ο ηγέτης του μουσικού συνόλου είναι ο Βασίλης Γαϊτάνος, ένας πρώην ναυτικός έμπορος, ένας λαμπρός πιανίστας και τραγουδιστής ο οποίος περιόδευσε τον κόσμο με το μεγάλο συνθέτη, Μίκη Θεοδωράκη.

Στο μουσικό σύνολο υπάρχει ο Alex Galas το υπέροχο μπουζούκι, που πρωτάκουσε μαγεμένος το όργανο όταν ήταν έντεκα ετών. Ο Γιώργος Παπαδάτος στα τύμπανα που αντηχούν σαν βροντή απ’ τον Όλυμπο, ο Βασίλης Ρούσης σαν αστραπή στην κιθάρα κι ο Άρης Μαρμαντάς που κυριολεκτικά πυρπολεί με την κλασσική κιθάρα. Ο καλός φίλος και θαυμάσιος ενορχηστρωτής της μουσικής τους είναι ο Σπύρος Παναούσσης.

Ακούγοντας τον Βασίλη και το μουσικό σύνολο να παίζουν και να τραγουδούν για λίγες ώρες, είναι το επόμενο καλύτερο πράγμα που μπορείτε να κάνετε, εκτός από την επίσκεψη στην Ελλάδα. Παίζουν έντονα τραγούδια αγάπης και σκοτεινιασμένα τραγούδια για την άτυχη μοίρα του ανεκπλήρωτου έρωτα, της αγάπης και της ζήλειας, τα τραγούδια της ελευθερίας των πολεμιστών που μάχονται τους καταπιεστές τους και τα στοιχειωμένα τραγούδια των περιπλανήσεων και της εξορίας. Η μουσική τους μου φέρνει τις εικόνες και τους ήχους απ’ τα ελληνικά ταξίδια, τον ήχο απ’ τις καμπάνες των εκκλησιών, οι φλογέρες των βοσκών, το γέλιο του γάμου στα χωριά, τα ερείπια των ναών στον άνεμο στους Δελφούς.

Και πάντα η μουσική θα θυμίζει για μένα χαρούμενες γιορτές σε χωριά, κωμοπόλεις και ξέφωτα στο βουνό, αμετάβλητα στο πάθος και στο σθένος από το κρασί – ως την μακρινή εποχή του Ομήρου.

Ωστόσο, κάτι τραγικό είναι παρόν στην ελληνική μουσική, καθώς στην ίδια στιγμή της χαράς υπάρχει και η μελαγχολία, που υπάρχει στα κόκαλα και στο αίμα των Ελλήνων, μέσα από τέσσερις αιώνες σκλαβιάς. Ήταν μόλις πριν από 150 χρόνια, όταν οι Έλληνες, μετά από μια πικρή επανάσταση δέκα ετών, απαλλάχτηκαν από αυτούς τους θλιβερούς αιώνες καταπίεσης.  Όταν αυτό το συναίσθημα που λέγεται ελληνικά «στενοχώρια» έρχεται ύπουλα μέσα από τα τραγούδια και τη μουσική, ακόμη και εκείνοι που δεν είναι Έλληνες μπορούν να αισθανθούν τη διαχρονική θλίψη.

"Καφενείο το Δειλινό" ... "Η φωλιά του Ντένι", είναι καταλύματα που υπάρχουν σε έναν κόσμο διαφορετικό μα, όπως λέει ο Ευριπίδης, «σπίτι είναι όπου βρίσκεται η καρδιά», και «χαρά όπου η μουσική εισχωρεί και κατακτάει τη μοναξιά και γίνεται ένα με την επιθυμία για τραγούδι και χορό». Αυτή η όρεξη για ζωή είναι ενσωματωμένη σε ένα παλιό ελληνικό τραγούδι:

 "Ακόμη και με πολλά βάσανα, η ζωή είναι γλυκιά.

 Και όποιος θέλει να έρθει Χάρος πρέπει να είναι τρελός"

Αυτό το υπέροχο άλμπουμ καταγράφει πολλά τραγούδια, που παίζει ο Βασίλης Γαϊτάνος και το μουσικό σχήμα του, έτσι ώστε αυτοί που δεν μπορούν να επισκεφθούν την «Φωλιά του Ντένι» (σ.σ. τώρα έχει κλείσει) θα είναι σε θέση να ακούσουν τη μαγεία τους.

Ίσως έτσι ο ακροατής καταλάβει, πως διαρκεί το θαύμα αυτής της μικρής Ελλάδας, που αποκαλύπτεται στη λογοτεχνία, την τέχνη και τη μουσική ψυχή και θα πρέπει να εμπνεύσει τους άνδρες και τις γυναίκες σε όλο τον κόσμο για όσο χρονικό διάστημα διαρκεί η Γη .

Harry Mark Πετράκης

Σικάγο-Ιλλινόϊς

25 Οκτωβρίου 1981
[Μετάφραση [Ioanna Kaskoura-Sheridan] 

Το 1981, ο Βασίλης Γαϊτάνος, κυκλοφόρησε ένα δίσκο με αντιπροσωπευτικά Ελληνικά τραγούδια του Μ.Θεοδωράκη, Μ.Χατζιδάκι Χρ.Λεοντή, Θ.Μικρούτσικου και Στ. Ξαρχάκου. Για να κατεβάσετε το CD του Βασίλη Γαϊτάνου, πατήστε ΕΔΩ  

  1.Σταυρός του Νότου

  2.Το μαχαίρι

  3.Ήτανε μια φορά

  4.Δραπετσώνα

  5.Άσπρη μέρα και για μας

  6.Κάθε τρελό παιδί

  7.Θεσσαλονίκη

  8.Είναι μακρύς ο δρόμος σου

  9.Μέρα Μαγιού

10.Και να αδελφέ μου
Δείτε παλαιότερη ανάρτηση για τον Βασίλη Γαϊτάνο όπου μπορείτε να κατεβάσετε άλλα δύο υπέροχα CD KLICK HERE

Yannis Ritsos / Epitaphios / Mikis Theodorakis

Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990)

"Yannis Ritsos," wrote Peter Levi in the Times Literary Supplement of the late Greek poet, "is the old-fashioned kind of great poet. His output has been enormous, his life heroic and eventful, his voice is an embodiment of national courage, his mind is tirelessly active." At their best, Ritsos' poems, "in their directness and with their sense of anguish, are moving, and testify to the courage of at least one human soul in conditions which few of us have faced or would have triumphed over had we faced them," as Philip Sherrard noted in the Washington Post Book World. Twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, Ritsos won the Lenin Peace Prize, the former Soviet Union's highest literary honor, as well as numerous literary prizes from across Eastern Europe prior to his death in 1990.

The hardship and misfortune of Ritsos' early life played a large role in all of his later writings. His wealthy family suffered financial ruin during his childhood, and soon afterward his father and sister went insane. Tuberculosis claimed his mother and an older brother and later confined Ritsos himself to a sanatorium in Athens for several years. Poetry and the Greek communist movement became the sustaining forces in his life.

Because his writing was frequently political in nature, Ritsos endured periods of persecution from his political foes. One of his most celebrated works, the "Epitaphios," a lament inspired by the assassination of a worker in a large general strike in Salonica, was burned by the Metaxas dictatorship, along with other books, in a ceremony enacted in front of the Temple of Zeus in 1936. After World War II and the annihilation of Greece's National Resistance Movement—a Communist guerrilla organization that attempted to take over the country in a five-year civil war—Ritsos was exiled for four years to the islands of Lemnos, Makronisos, and Ayios Efstratios. His books were banned until 1954. In 1967, when army colonels staged a coup and took over Greece, Ritsos was again deported, then held under house arrest until 1970. His works were again banned.

Ritsos' poetry ranges from the overtly political to the deeply personal, and it often utilizes characters from ancient Greek myths. One of his longer works and the subject of several translations, The Fourth Dimension, is comprised of seventeen monologues that most frequently involve the ancient King Agamemnon and the tragic House of Atreus. Narrated by such classical figures as Persephone, Orestes, Ajax, Phaedra, and Helen of Troy, The Fourth Dimension is a "beautifully written book . . . describing what happens when love and hate and sibling rivalry run amok," commented Stand reviewer Mary Fujimaki, who also praised the work's "colour, the excitement, the shifting back and forth from past to present that naturally makes the stories seem more familiar to modern readers." Shorter in length are the verses from 1991's Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses, a collection of eighty relatively brief poems that incorporate Greek myths and history. "Here . . . is the Ritsos of 'simple things,'" commented Minas Savvas in a review for World Literature Today. "The desire to draw out a moment or an object and magically expand it for its mystifying, arcane significance is wonderfully evident in these laconic, almost epigrammatic poems."

Many critics rank Ritsos' less political poems as his best work. George Economou, writing in the New York Times Book Review, stated that "in the short poems, most of which are not overtly political, Ritsos is full of surprises. He records, at times celebrates, the enigmatic, the irrational, the mysterious and invisible qualities of experience." Vernon Young in Hudson Review cited Ritsos' "remarkable gift . . . for suggesting the sound and color of silence, the impending instant, the transfixed hush." Similarly, John Simon pointed to the surreality of Ritsos' work. In a review of Ritsos in Parenthesis for Poetry, Simon wrote: "What I find remarkable about Ritsos' poetry is its ability to make extraordinary constructs out of the most unforcedly ordinary ingredients—surreality out of reality. And seem not even to make it, just find it." Simon also found a loneliness in Ritsos' poems. He explained: "Ritsos . . . is also a great bard of loneliness, but of loneliness ennobled and overcome. Poem after poem, image upon image, suffuses aloneness with a gallows humor that begins to mitigate its ravages and makes the person in the poem a Pyrrhic winner." Ritsos' final volume of verse, Argha, poli argha mesa sti nihta, was completed just prior to his death and published in its original Greek in 1991. "The imagistic dynamism, lyric intensity, and astonishing quasi-surrealistic expressions" that characterized the poet's work for his seventy-year career are, in the opinion of World Literature Today reviewer M. Byron Raizis, "manifest again, as refreshing and effective as any time during . . . his creative activity."

Source POETRY FOUNDATION

Epitaphios

His career took a leap forward when, in May of 1936, he composed his Epitaphios immediately after the slaughter of twelve tobacco workers by Thessaloniki police during a strike. Issued in ten thousand copies, this became the first of Ritsos’s poems to be banned. The Metaxas dictatorship, when it came to power in August, publicly burned the 250 unsold copies at the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

This was a lengthy poem which uses the mechanics of traditional poetry but expresses in a clear and simple language a message of fraternity and brotherhood.

Poetry: Yannis Ritsos
Music: Mikis Theodorakis
Sings: Mary Linda
Translation: Amy Mims

WHERE DID MY BOY FLY AWAY (POU PETAXE T'AGORI MOU)Son, my flesh and blood. 
marrow of my bones, heart of my own heart,
sparrow of my tiny courtyard, flower of my loneliness.
Where did my boy fly away? Where's he gone? Where's he leaving me?
The bird-cage is empty now, not a drop of water in the fonnt. 
What ever made your dear eyes close and you are blind to my tears?
How are yon frozen in yonr tracks and deàf to my bitter words? 

YOUR SWEETLY SCENTED LlPS (CHILI  MOU MOSCHOMYRISTO)
My fingers would slip through your cnrly hair, aIl through the night,
wliile you were fast asleep and I was keeping watch by your side.
Your eyebrows weIl shaped, as if drawn with a delicate pencil,
seemed to sketch an arch where my gaze could nestle and be at rest.
Your glistening eyes reflected the distances of the sky
at dawn and I tried to keep a single tear from misting them.
Your sweetly scented lips, whenever you spoke, made the boulders
and blighted trees blossom and nightmgales flutter their wings. 

ON A DAY IN MAY YOU LEFT ME (MERA MAYIOU MOU MISEPSES)

On a day in May you left me, on that May day I lost you,
in springtime you loved so weIl, my son, when you went upstairs,
To the sun-drenched roof and looked out and your eyes never had
their lill of drinking in the light of the whole wide world at large.
With your manly voice so sweet and so warm, you recounted
as many things as all the pebbles strewn along the seashore.
My son, you told me that all these wonderful things will be ours,
but now your light has died out, our brightness and fire are gone.

MY STAR YOU'VE SET (VASSILEPSES ASTERI MOU)
My star, you've set, fading out in the dark, aIl Creation has set,
and the sun, a black ball of twine, has gathered in its bright light
Crowds keep passing by and jostling me, soldiers trample on me,
but my own gaze never swerves ana my eyes never leave you.
The misty aura of your breath I feel against my cheek;
ah, a buoyant great light's a-float at tlie end of the road.
The palm of a hand bathed in light is wiping the tears from my eyes;
ah my son, the words you spoke rush into my innermost core.
And look now; I've risen again, my limbs can still stand firm;
a blithe light, my brave lad; has lifted me up from the ground.
Now you are shrouded in banners. My child, now go to sleep
I'm on my way to your brothers, beanng your voice with me. 

YOU WERE KIND AND SWEET OF TEMPER (ISSOUN KALOS  ISSOUN GLYKOS)

You were kind and sweet of temper, aIl the good graces were yours, 

all the wind's caresses, all the gillyflowers of the garden.
You were light of foot, treading as softly as a gazelle,
when you stepped past our threshold it always glittered like gold
I drew youth from your youth and to boot, I could even smile.
Old age never daunted me and death I could disregard.
But now where can I hold my ground? Where can I find shelter?
I'm stranded like a withered tree in a plain buried in snow 

WHENEVER YOU STOOD NEAR THE WINDOW (STO PARATHYRI STEKOSSOUN)

Whenever you stood near the window, your brawny shoulder-blades 

filled up the whole entranceway, the sea and the fishermen's boats
The house overflowed with your shadow, tall as an archangel,
and the bright bud of the evening-star sparkled up there in your ear.
Our window was the gateway for all the world, leading out
towards paradise, my dear hght, where the stars were all in bloom. 

As you stood there with your gaze fixed on the glimmering sunset,
you looked like a helmsman steering a ship, which was your own room.
ln the warm blue twilight of evening - ahoy, away -
you sailed me straight into the stillness of ihe milky way
But now this ship has foundered, ils rudder has broken down,
and down in the depths of the ocean, I'm drifting all alone. 

IF ONLY I HAD THE IMMORTALS' POTION (T'ATHANATO NERO)

If only I had the immortals' potion if only I had 

A new soul to give you, if only yould wake for a moment,
To see and to speak and delight in the whole of your dream
Standing right there by your side, next to you, bursting with life.
Roadways and public places, balconies, lanes in an uproar,
young maidens are picking flowers to sprinkle on your hair.
My fragrant forest full of tens of thousands of roots and leaves,
how can I the ill-fated believe I can ever lose you?
My son, all things have vanished and abandoned me back here
I have no eyes and cannot see, no mouth to let me speak. 

MY SWEET LAD YOU HAVE NOT BEEN LOST (GLYKE MOU ESSY DEN CHATHIKES)

My son, what Fate has destined you and what Fate was my doom 

to kindle such buming grief, such fire inside my breast?
My sweet lad, you have not been lost, you live inside my veins.
My son, flow deep into all our veins and stay for ever alive.

Yannis Ritsos - Mikis Theodorakis

Ο «Επιτάφιος» αποτελεί ένα λαϊκό μοιρολόι. Ο 15σύλλαβος του δημοτικού μας τραγουδιού, άρτιος και εδώ, οι λέξεις απλές, πολύπαθες, δοκιμασμένες από τα άμεσα βιώματα του ποιητή, υπηρετούν το μοιρολόι της μάνας. Ο Ρίτσος ταυτίζεται με τον πόνο της μάνας, περνά μέσα από εξάρσεις και ταλαντώσεις υποκειμενικού πόνου σε μια αντικειμενικοποίηση: πίσω από τη μάνα που θρηνεί το μοναχογιό της υπάρχει η Πανανθρώπινη Μάνα, η αιώνια θλιμμένη για τα πάθη του Λαού. Ανασύροντας ο ποιητής στην επιφάνεια καταγραμμένες και επεξεργασμένες ήδη συλλογικές μνήμες, ανυψώνει το μοιρολόι της μάνας σε ισχυρή κατάφαση ζωής, αλλά και σε μανιφέστο ταξικής συνειδητοποίησης και μοχλό ταξικής πάλης.

ΠΕΡΙΣΣΟΤΕΡΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΟΝ ΕΠΙΤΑΦΙΟ ΕΔΩ