Nikos Skalkottas - 7 Greek Dances (nos. 5-7)

Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949)

Seven Greek Dances (1931-36)
5. Mariori mou - Mariori mou; Moderato assai e molto espressivo
6. Arkadikos; Moderato
7. Kleftikos; Allegro vivo

Malmö Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nikos Christodoulou

Skalkottas composed his thirty-six Greek Dances, one of his best known and most important works, between 1931 and 1936. He worked at revising it periodically until the last year of his life, completing three full manuscripts with orchestral revisions and, in a few of the dances, changes in the composition. He also did several transcriptions of individual dances for various combinations of instruments. The posthumously published version for strings soon became popular.

The Greek Dances show both harmonic and formal originality. Skalkottas's exploratory use of the Greek folk material is inspired - a landmark in Greek music.

The titles of the dances refer either to regions of Greece and their music - e.g. "Epirotikos" (Epirus), "Kretikos" (Crete), "Thessalikos" (Thessaly), "Ardikos" (Arcadia, Peloponnese), or to a type of folk-dance - e.g. "Tsamikos, Kleftikos", or sometimes to the title of a folk-song, such as "Mariori mou". In Kretikos, Tsamikos and Mariori mou Skalkottas uses traditional folk melodies. In Epirotikos, Thessalikos, Arkadikos and Kleftikos the composer invents his own thematic ideas.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Nikos
• Skalkottas
• Greek
• Dances

[VI1988TU]

Amazing! How can I get the music?? thanks

[688james]

Skalkottas is one of the best Greek composers. He died early. His music is fantastic. He became famous many years after his death, with the help of friends of his music such as Papaioannou & Christodoulou. It is a shame that he did not had the honor he deserved when he was alive... To my mind he is very good and he can be compared with the rest classical music composers.

[kamvysis]

The dances of Skalkottas are astonishing in their depth, especially the Mariori one. This execution is a little academic and unsure, which is seen in the tempo. But anyway someone could reconstruct. The only problem of Skalkottas was some remnants of the Kalomoiris school, i.e. the virility of traditionnal music is cannot be reached by the softness of german-born orchestral textures.

The Mariori mou - Mariori is as we say in greek "to have your hair risen".

[mariadespina80]

Splendid !!

You have an extraordinary channel !!!!