COMPOSING GREECE
A few days ago, while contemplating my next move upon the giant chessboard before the State Library of Victoria, I overheard a university-aged girl with large plastic rimmed glasses and a decidedly genteel accent with the refined overtones of Doncaster-Hellenic remark to her friend in close proximity:
“I don’t know anything about classical music but I don’t like it. It’s just all about entitled dead white dudes.”
Not being able to help myself and frustrated at not being able to find a clear pathway for my bishop, I interjected:
“Have you perchance heard of Tchaikovsky?”
“No, what’s that?” she answered disinterestedly.
“Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer. He struggled with poverty and his sexuality and committed suicide by deliberately contracting cholera so he wouldn’t be outed as gay.”
“As I said,” she shrugged her shoulders. “A dead privileged white dude.”
Now I take exception to anyone who besmirches the name of Tchaikovsky and in my indignation, could not help protesting vehemently: “How is Tchaikovsky any more or less entitled than Jay Z or Snoop Dog?”
“Who is Snoop Dog?” she asked.
It was then I realised that I am so old…
Like Snoop Dog and Jay Z, I was anxious to inform my new friend, whose forebears come from Sparta and some rural place of habitation in the hinterland of Kalamata the name of which she does not know, Tchaikovsky also visited Greece, specifically in 1886. He visited Athens and admired the Acropolis, as well as other historical sites. Tchaikovsky found inspiration in Greece's ancient ruins and composed his orchestral work "Capriccio Italien" shortly after his visit, which features lively and energetic themes reminiscent of Greek folk dances, repackaged as Italian, just like olive oil because Italian sells better. He also went on to visit Trapezounta in Pontus and spent two days there. He became enamoured of the city, which he wrote was "reminiscent of some oriental fairy tale." During his stay, he also made a pilgrimage to the monastery of Panagia Soumela and he composed a little of the third act of his opera: “The Enchantress,” the action of which bizarrely enough, takes place at the last quarter of the fifteenth century at a tavern and brothel near Nizhny Novgorod.
A number of other Western composers also sought inspiration from their travels in Greece, incorporating its sounds and sights within their melodic palette. German-Hungarian composer Franz Liszt is said to have visited Greece in 1837. Deeply moved by the country's history and mythology, he was inspired to compose works imbued Greek themes, including the symphonic poem "Prometheus" a dissonant meditation on the imprisonment, pain, hope, and the final triumph of the reconstituted bowel and the piano composition "Harmonies du soir,” whose technical innovations can be seen as a modern interpretation of the exploration of mathematical and geometric principles in music by the ancients Pythagoras and Archytas. Enthralled by his experiences, Liszt also composed the symphonic poem "Les Préludes," which contains references to Greek mythology and muses upon human destiny.
Composer Felix Mendelssohn travelled to Greece in 1831, where he spent time poking around the ancient ruins and avoiding modern ones, sketching his surrounds and taking detailed notes of his observation of Greek culture. Mendelssohn's visit to Greece had a profound impact on his musical and artistic development. One of the most notable works influenced by his visit to Greece is his "Symphony No. 2," also known as the "Hymn of Praise." This symphony incorporates elements of Greek choruses and celebrates the human spirit and the power of music in a manner unsurpassed until the advent of Christos Dantis.
Greece undoubtedly also had a significant influence on Richard Strauss, particularly in terms of its ancient history and mythology. His visit to Greece in 1907 deepened his appreciation for Greek culture and inspired and he found inspiration in the timeless stories and characters of Greek mythology.
One of the most notable works influenced by Greece is Strauss's opera "Elektra," composed in 1909. Based on the Sophoclean tragedy, the opera delves into the psychological complexities of its characters, exploring themes of vengeance, fate, and the power of the human will. Strauss's use of dissonance and chromaticism in the score reflects the intense emotions and turmoil found in Greek tragedy. Another composition influenced by his stay in Greece is the tone poem "Also sprach Zarathustra" inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical work of the same name. The work includes a section known as the "Dance Song" that draws from the Greek tradition of ecstatic dance, exemplifying Strauss's interest in the Greek spirit and its impact on his music.
Claude Debussy, the renowned French composer, visited Greece in 1896. His exposure to Greek culture influenced his compositional style and the way he approached harmony and melody. The experience of Greek antiquity and the natural beauty of Greece resonated with Debussy and can be seen in some of his works, such as "La mer" and "Pelléas et Mélisande,” as well as the symphonic poem "L'après-midi d'un faune" (Afternoon of a Faun).
The Italian composer Ottorino Respighi’s 1911 visit to Greece inspired him to incorporate Greek themes and musical elements into some of his works having this inform the way he saw his home country. One of his most famous compositions influenced by his trip is the orchestral suite "The Pines of Rome" (1924). The third movement of the suite, titled "The Pines of the Janiculum," evokes the atmosphere of ancient Rome, but it also includes references to ancient Greece with Respighi striving to capture the spirit and imagery of the Greek past through his music.
Carl Orff the German composer known for his famous work "Carmina Burana," and whose flirtation with fascism was highly problematic, visited Greece in the early 1930s. His experiences in Greece greatly influenced his compositional style and his later work, including the development of his unique approach to rhythm and percussion, evident in in his trilogy of Greek-inspired operas called the "Trionfi.”
Richard Wagner, on the other hand never made it to Greece, even though he was enamoured of its ancient past, declaring: “In any serious investigation of the essence of our art today, we cannot take one step forward without being brought face to face with its intimate connection with the art of ancient Greece. For, in point of fact, our modern art is but one link in the artistic development of the whole of Europe; and this development found its starting- point with the Greeks.” Instead, Greece for him constituted a fantasy place of refuge. In 1850, whilst in exile from Saxony and in conflict with his wife, Wagner met Jessie Laussot, the wife of a Bordeaux wine merchant. Wagner and his paramour planned to escape to Greece but before they could do so, the scheme was blocked by the intervention of Jessie's husband, an action which Wagner in his autobiography characterised as unreasonable and intolerable. There are of course many connections between classical Greek tragedies and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, which is a tetralogy, as were the Attic tragedies, intended for performance at a festival over four days. Perhaps the greatest complement Wagner could pay Greece is for him to comment on the last day of his life that he harboured the greatest admiration for the Oresteia of Aeschylus, adding: “my admiration for him never ceases to grow.”
Similarly, the philhellenic French composer Hector Berlioz, who dreamed of a free Greece, was never able to make the journey. His outrage at the massacre of Chios compelled him to set Scène Héroïque: La Révolution Grècque, composed on the topic, to music, for two Bass soloists, Choir and Orchestra. His love of Greece influenced the composition of his opera "Les Troyens," which draws inspiration from Homer’s epic "The Iliad,” and in his book "Les Grotesques de la musique," he analysed the influence of Greek music on the development of Western music.
My new friend scrolls though her phone as I enthuse upon the composers of old and then presents me with a song whose introduction appears to be a plaintive Epirot lament, which quickly degenerates into a mass of American-accented expletives. This, she informs me, is rapper Rick Ross’ “Santorini Greece,” which contains such poignant lyrics as: “Half of my niggas headed to Attica/ Either trafficking or destined to be a janitor,” going on to declaim: “Better yet, take my old bitches and mould 'em right/ And if I want her back I come and take her back/ Santorini Greece, I put it on the map.” Immediately I am entranced by the manner in which contemporary Greece, with all its harshness and contradictions reaches across musical traditions to inspire composition, that is until I get to these verses: “So I copped some cribs in the ATL/ Martha Stewart decorated both/ Snoop Dogg donated the smoke.”
I gasp and she looks up at me and flashes a wicked Clytemnestra smile. She knew of the Dogg all along….
DEAN KALIMNIOU
posted by PANEPIROTIC FEDERATION OF AUSTRALIA at Saturday, June 10, 2023
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