6th Concert. Brussels Chamber Orchestra, Guttman, Isserlis, Mina, Prosseda

Nikolaos Skalkottas (1904-1949)

5 Greek Dances, AK 11b

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Cinq mélodies populaires grecques MA 4-5, 9-11

Katerina Mina, soprano

Roberto Prosseda, piano

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)

From 14 Romances, Op. 34: No. 14:

Vocalise. Version for soprano and strings.

Katerina Mina, soprano

Arvo Pärt (1935)

Fratres for violin and strings

Michael Guttman, violin

John Tavener (1944-2013)

Eternal Memory for cello and strings

Steven Isserlis, cello

Brussels Chamber Orchestra

Michael Guttman, conductor

Nikos Skalkottas’ (1904-1949) Five Greek Dances is a series of pieces inspired by traditional Greek music. This orchestral cycle forms part of a larger repertoire of thirty-six dances composed by Skalkottas, yet it is frequently performed as a standalone work. It comprises five movements, each with a specific title: Epirotikos, Kretikos, Tsamikos, Arkadikos, and Kleftikos. The precise date of composition remains uncertain, but the pieces were published posthumously in 1956 by Universal Edition.

Between 1904 and 1906, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) also turned his attention to Greek melodies, producing what is now known as the Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques. The authentic melodic lines had previously been transcribed by the French writer and music critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi during his ethnomusicological research in Constantinople and on the island of Chios. Calvocoressi, bound to Ravel by deep friendship and shared aesthetic interests, suggested that the composer arrange these materials for a lecture given by the French musicologist Pierre Aubry at the École des hautes études. The collection exhibits notable chronological and stylistic variety: while Tout gai [All happy] appears to derive from a relatively recent tradition, probably dating from the late nineteenth century, Là-bas, vers l’église [Over there, towards the church] and La Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques [The song of the mastic tree gatherers] belong to an older lineage. The songs were published by Durand in 1906.

Six years after the publication of these melodies, Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), then in Moscow, composed Vocalise, a remarkable song that has repeatedly captivated audiences. The final piece of his Fourteen Romances, Op. 34, it is unique in being a ‘vocalise’: devoid of text, the singer renders the melody using a vowel of their choice.

Among works that have left an indelible mark on the contemporary musical imagination, Arvo Pärt’s (b. 1935) Fratresstands as a paradigm of formal simplicity and spiritual intensity. Composed in 1977 and reworked over the years into multiple instrumental versions, the piece represents one of the earliest and most emblematic expressions of the “tintinnabuli” style, developed by the Estonian composer following a long period of creative silence and study of early music. The title Fratres, meaning “brothers” from the latin term, suggests a sense of unity and sharing reflected in the musical structure: an immutable harmonic core forms the backbone of the work, around which rhythmic and dynamic variations unfold, constantly changing yet maintaining a meditative equilibrium. This dialectic between stasis and transformation epitomises a sonic poetics privileging resonance, silence, and symmetry, offering an almost liturgical listening experience. The absence of narrative or programmematic elements leaves room for inner interpretation, while the material’s versatility has allowed Fratres to adapt to diverse ensembles – from violin and piano to string orchestra and percussion.

Finally, John Tavener’s (1944-2013) Eternal Memory, composed in 1991, can perhaps be best approached through the composer’s own words: “In the great creative cultures of the world, human beings do not regard themselves as two-legged animals, descended from the apes, whose needs and satisfactions can be achieved through pursuing social, political and economic self-interest in the material world and as though their life was confined to a material space-time dimension. On the contrary, they think of themselves first and foremost as descended from the gods, or from God, and as heirs to eternity, with a destiny that goes far beyond anything that can be fulfilled in terms of the material world. They come from a divine source, and the divine world is their birthright and their true home. Here, a certain act of recollection is needed: the self-image and world view that may dominate us have their origin in a loss of memory, in a forgetfulness of all other. […] Eternal Memory is a meditation on ‘the remembrance of death’ – Remembrance of the Paradise Lost, in the first section, and then in the middle section, which has an insubstantial illusory quality, the material of the paradise lost is the same, but it is ‘like castles children build in the sand’. The enjoyment is limited merely to the effort one puts in building them. And as soon as you stop, the sand collapses and leaves not a trace of the work you put in. The final section looks forward to the unknown paradise promised to us, yet to come so, in spite of the ephemeral middle section, Paradise persists, even though we do not know what it is”.

 Federico Foglizzo