"The Soldier's Tale" | Works by Chopin, Christodoulou, Koukos, Stravinsky, Zervos

The ensemble is the brainchild of Nikos Christodoulou, who first suggested having Onassis Foundation musical scholars play together. The ensemble forms a chamber orchestra for this concert, and the majority of the musicians involved —including the vocal and instrumental soloists, the Greek composers and the conductor— are recipients of Onassis Foundation scholarships.

The program includes works for chamber orchestra by three contemporary Greek composers in addition to a major work by Stravinski. Some of the works use theatrical staging or/and the human voice, but all feature musical encounters with literature or the theater.

A late Chopin nocturne leads into the “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” suite, an arrangement for chamber orchestra of Pericle Koukos’ opera-ballet of the same name. Based on Shakespeare’s play, the work features the interchange of vibrant, polyrhythmic and melodic elements, a range of tone colors with prominent brass solos, and allusions to Renaissance modality.

Nikos Christodoulou’s “Great Crane Dance on Kullaberg” references Salma Lagerlöf’s much-loved children’s novel, “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils”; in the chapter of that name, a ritual dance at the annual assembly of the animals culminates in the dance of the cranes. Non-programmatic, the work is in sonata form with two contrasting musical ideas: one polyrhythmic and homophonic, the other contrapuntal with a steady rhythmic pulse.

"Grodek" is a musical setting by Giorgos Zervos for Georg Trakl’s last poem (1914). Written for soprano and chamber orchestra, it reflects the dark atmosphere of the First World War and combines two elements —‘nature’ and ‘death’— in the form of interweaving melodic-rhythmic motifs that rise steadily to a climax.

Stravinsky’s celebrated “Histoire du soldat” [“Soldier's Tale”] suite is unique in both style and orchestration: setting out to write a music-theater work that could feasibly be played in the straitened economic circumstances that followed World War I, Stravinsky scored it for an unusually small ensemble of just seven instruments. The concert ends with the same composer’s “Tango”.