The Hellenic Project 2022-23 | The treasure of Panagiotis Toundas and the new rebetiko

Ever true to its founding principles, the Hellenic Project is showcasing young artists once more through commissions for the creation of new works and more. Its aim is to produce original music output, broadening the repertoire through the efforts of both emerging and established composers.

This year’s program is focused on the rebetiko song tradition and its influence on the present day. Through a grouping of experimental (and non-experimental) actions, commissions, recordings, concerts, and film shoots, it seeks to reactivate the laïkó (“popular” – as in, of the people – or “folk”) song tradition. That is, to pick up from where the generation of Manos Hadjidakis left off, but heading off in new conceivable directions, seeking out old sources of intensity and truth in the present day. Events are to be held at the Mikro Pallas Theater, the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, and Megaron, the Athens Concert Hall. All Hellenic Project actions and events are supported by the Onassis Foundation.

In the first part of the concert, composer Grigoris Vasilas will be presenting “Expectation” – a work inspired the rebetiko tradition, and orchestrated by the composer – with an exceptional ensemble of musicians.

Describing his piece, the composer Grigoris Vasilas notes: “Anticipation, then – a hopeful awaiting. Sweet and tortuous in the role it so deserves, demanding an exclusivity and almost a monopoly on all thought. And when the time finally comes, one understands the power of its value in the outcome. This work is an amalgam of experiences, feelings and emotions, of influences, performances, and interpretations, and a distillation of thoughts drawn from the mores and values I have encountered. It is, on the one hand, everything that helped me put my own conscience in order and, on the other, everything that helped me not stay silent on things I am unable to say.”

The second part of the concert features songs never released by the great laïkó music reformer and composer Panagiotis Toundas, orchestrated by Manolis Pappos.

Manolis Pappos is without doubt one of the leading bouzouki players of our times, one who perpetuates the innate expressive and aural qualities of the instrument in a time when the bouzouki is tipping into decline. His unostentatious yet magical skill, his measured aesthetic choices, his cultivation and deeply poetic nature rightly position him as the artist of first choice to be entrusted with the treasures of Toundas.

These materials are being presented here for the first ever time since, for a variety of reasons, they were never recorded in their day. In certain instances, they are either drafts for prospective songs or melodies, or songs whose lyrics were never completed and so were left unreleased. Other materials never made it to the recording studio by force of circumstance. Nonetheless, the genius and signature style of the composer remains markedly and inescapably apparent within them.

The founder of the Hellenic Project, Dimitris Papadimitriou, had this to say about Panagiotis Toundas: “P.T. is rightly considered one of the great composers of the Smyrna repertoire. Deeply knowledgeable of music theory, he has left us perfect, almost calligraphic scores featuring notation that is impressive for the genre. His successful experimentation with multimodal approaches to melody still blaze light – even today – into a particularly opaque area within Greek melodicism. Into a terrain that can only be tackled by composers of rare talent who boast a mastery of the form. And Toundas is genuinely that rare instance where a deep grasp of Western music did not destroy the natural Greek element within his music. Quite the contrary – it helped him in fact to expand it.”

These finds brought a rich seam of around 30 songs to light. Manolis Pappos in the main worked with a single sheet for each, containing only certain melodies and musical “responses,” minus even the chords. In rare instances, there existed piano and vocal parts for him to use, in which case there were chords in place too. Other times, there were only stray ideas to work with, bereft of any elaboration, and of course lacking lyrics.

This series of unreleased Toundas pieces features a wide range of songs and ideas drawn from all three of his compositional periods.

His first period – 1926-1933 – includes songs of the Smyrna School, which are rooted in the style prevalent in Asia Minor during the first two decades of the 20th century and which feature a fusion of European musical elements with the traditional Greek style. When it comes to this conceptual approach, Toundas proved pivotal in the development of the form. It is precisely during this period that he became more widely known among musicians and to the broader public, emerging as one of the best-loved and leading composers of the time. His second period, which roughly runs from 1934 through to 1937, is more clearly influenced by the rebetiko song tradition. Last in line is his 1937-1941 period, dominated by a purely laïkó approach in which the bouzouki takes on a starring role.

Both series feature examples of:

1. Completed songs (including lyrics) drawn from all three periods of the composer’s output, with a repertoire that includes easy-listening, Asia Minor – “café aman” (tavern), rebetiko, and folk songs.
2. Melodies and fragments that have been imaginatively completed using contemporary approaches to song-making. Any lyrics missing in whole or in part were commissioned from both major poets (with song-writing experience, naturally) and rising lyricists: Michalis Ganas, Dionysis Kapsalis, Giorgos Koropoulis, and Kostas Fasoulas.

Dimitris Papadimitriou had this to say about his curation of the artistic program: “In the work of Grigoris Vasilas, we found the common wellspring of our explorations already clearly expressed. This was no coincidence, since the instrument on which a composer writes, and the way in which they play, is hugely important for rebetiko and laïkó artists. Without ever changing his sound or style, Vasilas plays pieces by, let’s say, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Giorgos Zampetas, Mikis Theodorakis, Manolis Chiotis, and Stavros Xarchakos like they are being performed for the first ever time. He has assimilated history in its entirety into a performance style that is all his own. This is also how he writes. An undeniably young Greek composer for the ages. A truly new voice, everlasting. We commissioned him to realize a work he himself proposed. Standing in polar opposition to Vasilas, yet of the same world, is the younger – in fact tremendously young – Evgenios Halil, whose work is to be presented in February. Here we have another instrumentalist with a singular sound who strikes the vein of an impressive originality, only Halil is also a trained pianist and an ever restless musician who flirts with the alternative music zeitgeist, and this immediately makes us doubly excited and curious in our anticipation. The contradistinction between Vasilas and Halil is indicative of an ever enigmatic present. But it also proves eloquent when set alongside the “new” songs by Panagiotis Toundas. This cycle is in fact – by rights – a timeless yet historical fork in the road where three paths meet.

“And though Oedipus, at a crossroads, killed a man he did not know was his own father, we well know who our fathers are and, as such, shall respectfully let the wondrous carriage of Panagiotis Toundas pass – then follow in its wake on foot.”