All posts tagged Folklore
Posted in: Reflections on our work.	Tagged: Aegean Sea, Aegeus, Aeschylus, Amélia Muge, Archipelago, Ariadne, Armando Soares, Concept album, Dionysis Karatzas, Euripides, Fado, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Fernando Pessoa, Folk music, Folklore, Friedrich Hölderlin, Galicians, Giorgos Andreou, Giorgos Mitsakis, Hélia Correia, Homer, Hubris, Hurrians, Hymnodist, João de Deus, José Gomes Ferreira, José Malhoa, José Niza, José Saramago, Laïko, Ludwig van Beethoven, Martin Codax, Michales Loukovikas, Minotaur, Naxos, Nostos, Odysseus, Odyssey, Orestes, Panagiotis Tountas, Parthenon, Pink Floyd, Rebetiko, Rosalía de Castro, Sappho, Smyrna, Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven), Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, Theseus, Tradition, Ugarit, Vasco da Gama, Vasilis Tsitsanis, Violeta Parra.	Leave a comment
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Ο ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΑΝΔΡΕΟΥ για το "ΑΡΧΙΠΕΛΑΓΟΣ"
Giorgos Andreou, a distinguished Greek composer and pianist
BETWEEN the Portuguese and the Greeks, they say, there's a great affinity. They are two peoples with superb achievements at sea. We, Greeks, have given glamour to the Archipelago, i.e. the Aegean Sea, since ancient times with the awesome and, at the same time, dazzling archetype of the great voyager, Odysseus, an (almost) intertemporal person now, who has remarkably managed to get into the consciousness and cultures of all the peoples of the world, thanks to that major text, the "Odyssey", which is essentially what? It is a man's struggle with the sea – at times his friend, at times his enemy – in order to return to his land, Ithaca, to fulfill his "nostos", to eat "nostimon" (delicious) bread, to experience what Homer calls "nostimon hemar" – the day of his return home. The significance of the word "nostimon" is so great that has ended up in us, Modern Greeks, having the meaning of a dish which is good and not "anoston" (tasteless). While "anostos" is the one who cannot return to his homeland. These are excellent wordplays of the language.
I'd like to point out some important lines of approach in this new work by Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the idea of an "integral recording", what we call a concept album, tends to fall apart, returning to an era of separate tracks that are being played on the radio inconsistently. I do not blame them; separate songs are fine, as well. But recording history has given us the opportunity to create masterpieces resembling literary works, novels: i.e. a whole disc having a single theme, or variations on a single theme, being a story. There are prominent Greek composers, who have set poetry to music producing significant work, as well as great foreign bands, such as Pink Floyd, and many others, who have benefited from this mode of recording.
Amelia and Michales have loved this mode; they've honoured it to the full. Both "Periplus", their previous joint effort, and "Archipelagos", are integrated acoustic, aesthetic, cultural immersions that you cannot listen to in parts; you have to listen to them in whole, seeing the development of their own aesthetics, sensitivity, artistic targeting, and through them, all the important parameters that inevitably come to light, even more so when two cultures meet, converging and also diverging.
Everything is featured and entertained in "Archipelagos": great poets that I feel the need to mention. We begin with an anonymous hymnodist from Ugarit 3500 years ago; it is a Hurrian hymn, whose music is set to Greek and Portuguese lyrics, that curiously its musical motif sounds very much like a Portuguese anti-fascist anthem, "Acordai!" (Wake up!). Sappho, Euripides, with a choral ode from "Orestes", Friedrich Hölderlin, João de Deus, Rosalía de Castro, José Gomes Ferreira, Hélia Correia and, of course, the two tremendous Portuguese literary personalities, Fernando Pessoa and José Saramago, are also present.
Regarding songwriters, those entertained here are Martín Codax (a medieval Galician bard), the celebrated Violeta Parra, Armando Soares, José Niza, as well as the Greeks Panagiotis Tountas, Giorgos Mitsakis, Vasilis Tsitsanis, along with some composers, most prominently Ludwig van Beethoven. Now what's Beethoven doing in a meeting between Portuguese and Greeks? Alright, there are always some artistic… perversions! It is, of course, justifiable because, strangely enough, this "Marcia funebre", in the Second Movement of the Third Symphony, has made a match in a "diabolical" and paradoxical way with a poetic creation by the eminent writer Hélia Correia,(*) a philhellene, who has also produced significant work under the influence of the Hellenic spirit, the ancient above all. Other composers are Fernando Lopes-Graça and me… (I have not referred to Michales and Amelia, as I do not consider them to be just authors in this work; I regard them as pillars. I've just mentioned those who are entertained in their work).
(*) Hélia Correia's poem, referred to by Giorgos Andreou, is "The Third Misery" (A Terceira Miséria, 2012), dedicated to Greece, with the Parthenon on the cover. It's a pity, indeed, if it's not published in Greek, as well.
A wonderful thing happened concerning myself: I had written a musical motif in the CD "Swallows in the Rain" (which I recorded with the outstanding Plucked Strings Orchestra "Athanasios Tsipinakis" of the municipality of Patras), asking the excellent poet Dionysis Karatzas to recite three of his poems, so as to have also his voice recorded along with the songs that were born within me due to his poetry. Indeed, he read the poems on a composition that I called "Like a Play". Listening to this music, Amélia picked a poem by Saramago, "Alegria", and perfectly matched melody and poetry as if by magic! There are more magic moments: Saramago's wife has been a very interesting actress having also worked in Patras, a philhellene, as well. Thrilling coincidences…
Plucked Strings Orchestra "Athanasios Tsipinakis" of the municipality of Patras
In our cultures, those related to sea, the poetic phenomenon is central. We can compliment ourselves that we are musicians, but the cultures in which Hellenes and Portuguese belong are above all poetic cultures. Their great dynamic is poetic creation. Poetic creation, I would say, from Homer to Pessoa, dictates in a way the reflection of these cultures, the way they gaze at themselves and the world, the way in which they ponder on the idea of voyage. Great poetic texts in both cultures deal with the sea, the human adventure. There have been great voyagers – the Portuguese have their own great explorers, e.g. Vasco da Gama – people who have struggled with the sea, even drowned, so that we could improve our understanding of the world, find new seas, new lands. But what these cultures are looking for above all is a deeper poetic connection of our being with the universe around us.
Fado, by José Malhoa
It is no coincidence that these cultures, for which the Poetic Mode is of great importance, preserve what we call folk culture – have their own Folk musical Tradition. The Portuguese have the well-known Fado, beloved all over the planet; we have our great Demotic Tradition and, at the same time, an important branch that sprang out from it, our folk song, which started from Smyrna as an urban song, and developed from Rebetiko to a city Laïkó song, reaching its climax with geniuses, such as Tsitsanis or, sometime before, Tountas, who has been a bridge between these two routes.
What, then, is that which preserves folk tradition in these cultures? (Because there are cultures – great at every level – which no longer have a folk tradition, a folk song of their own, but only academic). It is this poetic reflection, poetic consciousness, which is not (only) individual. There is a collective universe behind every individual in these cultures. I firmly believe this is due to the relationship with the infinite that the sea symbolizes. The water is the unconscious, the long voyage, underneath our logic, where we put islands, meaning logic, surrounded by the subconscious of the immense sea. That's how a sense of unity is born: while we are individuals, we are simultaneously a Community; and we express ourselves (how else?) through this Community.
The most important expression of the Community is Tradition – music, dance, visual arts. Whatever tradition we pick as an example, we realize there's a sense of coherence, of discipline: I conform myself to a pattern that exists for centuries now, I work on it, taste it, add or remove something, and give it back to go beyond me, when I no longer exist, though I exist through it, within it. This is a way of approaching our reality, a way with which our two cultures, the Hellenic and the Portuguese, have learned to live and create for centuries and centuries.
Tradition, by Olin Levi Warner (1895). Bronze tympanum
over the main entrance of the Library of Congress in Washington.
All of the above are in a way recorded in "Archipelagos". Of course, do not expect some musicological treatise. No creator or artist owes anything like that. First of all, what counts is his/her personal taste, mental euphoria, and the connections he/she has chosen. The artist defends a personal "meaning" while proposing a work of art. This meaning, however, at the same time symbolizes the whole, because Tsitsanis is also all the rest, just like Beethoven is in a way all Classical music. Thus a gesture has always a wider scope than the choice of a person.
I invite you, therefore, to listen, feel and love "Archipelagos" for what it is: the meeting of two creative persons, two important artists, two excellent musicians-composers, and the way they conform themselves to Tradition and at the same time renew it. Because a Tradition that remains stagnant and is not renewed will inevitably die and be "frozen". As well as a renewal that is more "irreverent" than it's proper – i.e. its audacity disturbs the balance of aesthetic and moral options, and is gradually transformed into an offense, damage, "unconventional" attitude, which anyway dissolves the fabric of Tradition – is equally reprehensible.
The Temple of Poseidon at Sounion; the point where Aegeus jumped into the sea, since his son, Theseus, blinded by arrogance and hybris (he had killed the Minotaur, but thanks to Ariadne, whom he later abandoned on Naxos), forgot to raise the white sail of good news
for his father waiting anxiously to see him back…
I believe that Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas have achieved this admirable balance creating in fact a work of art, so much flattering for us Greeks, as it is called "Archipelagos". There are many archipelagos, but historically the first one and immortal throughout the ages, thanks to the "Odyssey" and the father of all, Homer, is the Aegean Sea, which, as Aeschylus has written, many times we see it blooming dead, either by a tempest, or some naval battle or catastrophe, or an unexpected return without a white sail, such as that which led Aegeus in despair to jump into the waters and henceforth the sea to be called Aegean.
There's always a drama behind our cultures. However, we have already attained the manner, kindness, wisdom and mental integrity not to mourn this drama, but save it as a precious patrimony, a bittersweet balance between light and darkness, life and death – isn't human destiny likewise throughout the ages?
Good luck and congratulations on your work!
Speech during the presentation of "Archipelagos"
at "Janus" bookstores in Athens on May 4, 2018
• See also: GIORGOS ANDREOU on "PERIPLUS"
GIORGOS ANDREOU on "PERIPLUS"
Posted in: Reflections on our work.	Tagged: Amélia Muge, Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek music, Ares Alexandrou, Bach, Beethoven, Bellini, Blues, Bouzouki, Classical music, Composer, Corelli, Creation, Eleni Tsaligopoulou, Ethos, Fado, Folk music, Folklore, Giorgos Andreou, Gold in the Sky, Greece, Greek tragedy, Lisbon, Lyrics, Mediterranean, Michales Loukovikas, Mozart, Odysseus, Panayotis Tountas, Periplus, Poetry set to music, Popular music, Portugal, Portuguese guitar, Puccini, Rebetiko, Scarlatti, Seikilos epitaph, Smyrna, Song, Songwriter, Tango, Tradition, Traditional music, Violeta Parra, Vivaldi.	Leave a comment
/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Ο ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΑΝΔΡΕΟΥ για τον "ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥ"
Giorgos Andreou, a distinguished Greek
composer and pianist
THE CD "PERIPLUS" is a very interesting endeavour because it's not just a recording of traditional music of either Portugal or Greece; that is, it is not a disc that simply attempts to somehow compose in part the traditions and sounds of the two cultures. Because, in such a case, it would be more a project of folklore and not of artistic creation. Of course, elements of both these related traditions are used in a considerable extent; but this is not the central "theme" of the disc.
The characteristic of "Periplus" is its dynamism emanating from two songwriters, Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, who have composed original music and worked on their musical material using several sources in the poetic language of song: verses of poets (Greeks or Portuguese), lyrics from the ancient Hellenic literature, or of their own modern language, even quoting some folk or popular songs of the Greek or Portuguese traditions. A noble purpose and essential pursuit was to demonstrate the analogies that exist in this great womb called Mediterranean.
The most famous voyager in this great womb called Mediterranean has been an ancient (as well as modern – in my view) Hellene, called Odysseus, representing a universal archetype. Apart from all other things, as they say, he also founded Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.
Ludwig van Beethoven,
by Francesco Jerace (1895)
What is important in the tradition of either Portugal or Hellas is that it has sprung out as a Folk and (gradually) Urban music precisely because it doesn't have behind it to a great extent a background of Classical, academic music. There are certainly important composers of academic music in both countries – but neither Greece nor Portugal has produced anyone like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Corelli, Scarlatti, Bellini, Puccini, and so forth. It's been observed that where, for various historical and cultural reasons, the academic language of music, what we call Classical music, has not developed, the active memory of Tradition survives, and more space is created to develop and take over this Tradition in its transition to an urban environment. This is Fado, this is Rebetiko, this is Blues, Tango… Every kind of Music that we believe it derives from Tradition, and is essentially Folk Music, has predominantly flourished in an environment where the burden of the great academic, symphonic musical tradition has not existed.
Guitarra portuguesa, fado's lead instrument, accompanied by a king of Spanish guitar that the Portuguese call "viola"…
There are, of course, great differences between Fado and Rebetiko, as there are many analogies, as well. The analogies are exactly those implied by the geographic and cultural environment I have already mentioned, called the Mediterranean, dictating an attitude to life to the people of the several cultures living around her. And what is that? It is in my view its potential to highlight and give major importance to personal yearning.
Something that we can agree on, associating ourselves with our Portuguese friends in our music, is the way we deal with the emotional core of music; both in lyrics (the personal, existential adventure of each one), and also in music – the way we perceive the Song. Because we speak of Fado as a song, we speak of our own Traditional Folk Music as a song. The song needs a hero, and the hero's companion. The hero is the singer, and his/her companion is the accompanying instrument: the Portuguese guitar in Portugal, the bouzouki here, play this very role. It is a duo, a duo of silence, a duo far from the grand, "closed", symphonic forms, a convincing duo, a duo of profound and moving emotion.
I like "Periplus", it moves me: it's a dynamic testimony by two authors, a Portuguese and a Greek, willing to compose original stuff and taking into account where they come from and where they go. For me this is the quintessence of musical creation: to respect your origin, and at the same time to be able to converse with it and redefine it. Because a tradition that is not redefined, that doesn't move forward, perishes and becomes a dead, picturesque attitude.
Seikilos Epitaph (after 200 BCE), the oldest complete composition in the world (included in "Periplus")
Another thing that impressed me in the work by Michales and Amélia is that all sequences, all "chapters", give rise to thoughts and emotions. The first one is called "Absences", the second "Routes". (Note that we, Greek musicians, describe the folk musical scales with the term "route").
The third sequence is called "Songs". The word "song" ("tragoudi" in Greek) originates from the ancient Hellenic tragedy, it is "melos", i.e. melody; it's a selection of a short segment from a greater Whole, a segment of great importance for its emotional, ethical, conceptual, and musical-melodic content. There follow the "Islands". The island has a special symbolism. It is a part of earth surrounded by the sea; a part of reason surrounded by the ocean of the subconscious.
Then we "hear" the "Voices". The voice is the instrument of the Song. It is no coincidence that this sequence includes melodies and songs on ancient Hellenic texts, on ancient Greek poetry, along with some traditional elements – therefore we have traditions connected. There comes the sequence of "Lullabies". A lullaby is what we dedicate to that paradoxical dimension of human existence when someone neither "remembers" (exactly) nor "feels", a Sleep-Death: the literature and philosophic discourse on the relationship between sleep and death is extensive in the ancient Hellenic civilization.
Next is the sequence of "Loves", essentially Eros, with a breathtaking traditional song of ours, "The Foliage of a Rose", which is found in a similar, almost identical, form and emotional attitude in the Portuguese music, as well. The following sequence, "De Profundis", is certainly a confession – existential, erotic, emotional. Included here is an extraordinary song, "The Inner Dictates", on poetry by Ares Alexandrou and music by Michales Loukovikas, from a previous work of his, "The Gold in the Sky", dedicated to the great Greek thinker, poet and author.
Bouzouki: an instrument of the Greeks, Lebanese, and… Irish!
Panagiotis (Panos) Tountas
Then we enter some "Fado and Rebetiko Taverns", with another comment on the similarity of the popular reflexes in both cultures. Of course (since we speak about the relationship between tradition and personal creation), the song that Michales and Amélia have chosen, "The Manges of the Tavern", is not a piece by some unknown Hellene, but by the great composer Panagiotis Tountas. Tountas was one of the most important composers of Popular Song, essentially "erudite", an author who had studied music, worked during his Smyrnaic period as a quasi-academic musician (of the "Hellenistic Orient") and all his life as a first rate popular composer.
Finally, in the sequence "So Distant, So Near", there's a poetic recording of differences and similarities between the two vocal and cultural Traditions. A prime moment emotionally for me (which I consider to be the climax of the CD), is the parallel interpretation of the same song, "How Far Can Your Eyes Reach?", by Eleni Tsaligopoulou in Greek and Amélia Muge in Portuguese. "Periplus" ends with a song that justifiably has a subjective tone on the part of Amélia, dedicated to a previous important presence, Violeta Parra, a song of whom was a kind of guide and source of inspiration for Amélia.
I'd like to conclude saying that there are very important musical compositions in "Periplus" by both, Amélia Muge and Michales Loukovikas, and this is for me another merit of the CD. Beyond aesthetic connections, beyond cultural analogies, beyond any intentions to delineate and redefine borders and "contacts" of every kind, what ultimately remains is the essential question if "all this" produces a work of authentic Art. When there is a work of Art produced, then all previous intentions are justified. If there is no work of Art, all the rest are nothing but just slogans that are not being realized.
Well done, my friends, and keep it up!
Speech during the presentation of "Periplus"
"Janus" Bookstores, Athens, October 23, 2012
• See also GIORGOS ANDREOU on "ARCHiPELAGOS"