Georgios Axiotis (1875-1924)
Sunset (1923)
Prelude and Fugue (1914)
A Love Trilogy, Symphonic Impressions (1915)
Remembrance from a Ball (1915?)
Lyrical Intermezzo (1910s?)
Like a Game (1910s)
New Festival Opera-Symphony Orchestra Sofia/Byron Fidetzis
rec. 2003, Sofia, Bulgaria
NAXOS 8.574353 [78]
My introduction to the music of Georgios Axiotis came in the form of a plush boxed set that was a product of the 2004 Greek Cultural Olympiad (the Hellenic Culture Organisation). This impressively over-engineered and superbly annotated 12-CD set came in the form of a very large over-size case-box of works by largely uncelebrated Greek composers down the centuries. There on CD1 resides the Prelude and Fugue by Georgios Axiotis.
Here now is a whole CD of Axiotis’s works largely in editions by the conductor Byron Fidetzis who also wrote the indispensable liner-note in English and Greek. Fidetzis is a determined champion of neglected Greek music. He has previously recorded Kalomiris, Kalafati, Petridis and, generally a much tougher listen than Axiotis, Skalkottas (BIS). Axiotis proclaims himself as an unabashed late-romantic. He was born in Mariupol in the Ukraine but moved with his parents to Athens and then pursued music studies in Naples. He made his career in Athens where he died early in life.
Fidetzis - who draws brooding playing from the New Festival Opera-Symphony Orchestra Sofia - recounts that Axiotis “was a leading and historically significant Greek composer …” The words “leading and historically significant” do not necessarily mean that listeners will want to hear this music more than once. As it turns out you are in for a warmly saturated, romantic slow-burn. Axiotis beckons and welcomes you in but does not shake you to the core.
Sunset drips the exudate of romance while avoiding dense over-orchestration. It is quite Franckian. You expect the Prelude and Fugue to quite academic. It isn’t. Instead, rather like Sunset, it is a grand, romantic paragraph and rather grandiloquent, although ultimately the music is not quite memorable.
Love Trilogy (Symphonic Impressions) is in three movements (I. ‘On the Mountain’; II. ‘On the Plain’; III. ‘At the Ball’) and spans 35 minutes. ‘On the Mountain’ has its plunging, soaring yet measured peaks but overall is evocative of the high hills in a more distant emotional way. ‘On the Plain’ is a tender movement to which the overall title is clearly related. The tenderness carries over into the final Impression (‘At the Ball’) but soon gives way to the sort of lively dance to be found in Skalkottas’ Greek Dances (Bis Lyra), though Axiotis does such moments without quite the paprika which Skalkottas brings to the dance floor. It’s very pleasing though. Remembrance from a Ball has a title redolent of Karlowicz but Axiotis is lighter on his feet and has a more transparent touch. His mood is not intense and leans towards the lighter early works of Delius. Lyrical Intermezzo is operatic and has its intense romantic moments. Like a Game is a gentle thing which shows some backbone but is not especially striking.
Rob Barnett
