Skalkottas's
music still has the power to astonish. The Violin Concerto is
awesomely concentrated and, for 1938, extremely 'advanced'. He
uses twelve-tone method freely and leavens this with capricious
Stravinskian chatter in the final movement of three. If you started
your exploration of Skalkottas with the Bis-Christodoulou-BBCSO
CD of the complete Greek Dances you will find little echo
of that here. This is extreme end dodecaphony - not fragmented
though - melodic lines emerge, intertwine and stream away freely
rather like the Berg but without the Berg concerto's all-conquering
melancholy beauty.
From
six years later written in the dismal depths of the Nazi occupation
of Greece comes the phantasmal Largo Sinfonico, originally
intended, despite its great length (a single movement spanning
26 minutes), as part of a symphonic suite. This is a well sustained
and fantastic movement which has many accessible stretches including
the harp-shaded episodes at 15.23. The work is also not without
protesting conflict as at 20.03 as well as an acidic lyricism
(23.40). Again it is determinedly twelve tone.
The
seven Greek Dances are part of the cycle now recorded complete
in full orchestral versions by Bis. The Epirotikon goes
rather stiltedly by comparison with its full orchestra counterpart
on the BBCSO Bis disc. This was also conducted by Christodoulou
who also by the way contributes the extremely helpful if rather
technical booklet note. These seven dances with their uncomplicated
tonality make a pleasing contrast with the outright twelve tone
method of the other two major works on this disc. The dances can
best be characterised as close to Enescu and Wirén.
This
disc well merited selection for reissue at midprice as part of
the tranche of 30 discs to mark Bis's thirtieth anniversary.
Rob
Barnett
Georgios Demertzis (violin)