Nikos Skalkottas - The Land and The Sea of Greece (Lorenda Ramou)

Information

Composer: Nikos Skalkottas

• The Land and the Sea of Greece, Ballet Suite
• Island Images, Ballet Suite
• The Maiden and Death, Ballet Suite
• Procession to Acheron
• Echo, Little Dance Piece

Lorenda Ramou, piano

Date: 2006

Label: BIS

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

The five items here are stage works, written as accompaniments to choreography of various types. If some of the music seems familiar this is because the bulk of the two largest works have appeared in other guises in the series: the orchestral The Maiden and Death (1938) as main coupling for the First Piano Concerto while the six movements of The Land and Sea of Greece (1948) surface as either the Four Images (1948) or components of the folk ballet The Sea (1948-49), released together last year.

The music featured here is predominantly in Skalkottas's late tonal idiom, but with little overtly in the manner of the Greek Dances, except in The Maiden and Death which also incorporates more advanced writing to telling dramatic effect. If The Land and Sea of Greece burns with less intensity than his major abstract utterances, it is more than mere occasional or illustrative music and casts a valuable side-light on his complex compositional make-up. Movements such as “The Vintage” and “The Grape Stomping” are terrifically effective, as are the six vignettes making up Island Images (1943). Curiously, both ballets feature a movement entitled “The Trawler” but - their “Bydlo”-like momentum aside - are utterly different.

Lorenda Ramou, the fifth pianist to grace the series, is fluent and well versed in contemporary styles. Her playing is full of verve and alive to the delicacy of Skalkottas's writing in the fillers Procession to Acheron and Echo as well as the major pieces. The BIS sound is of demonstration class, as usual. Recommended.

— Guy Rickards

-----------------------------------------------------------

Nikos Skalkottas (21 March 1904 – 19 September 1949) was a Greek composer. He studied in Athens and Berlin under prominent teachers including Arnold Schoenberg. Initially focused on violin, he later turned to composition, developing a distinctive atonal style. Returning to Greece in 1933 due to the rise of Nazism, he faced limited recognition and worked as an orchestral violinist while composing extensively in isolation. Skalkottas created innovative approaches to twelve-tone and non-serial techniques, often integrating Greek folk elements. His over 170 works were mostly unpublished and unperformed during his lifetime.

***

Lorenda Ramou is a Greek pianist and musicologist. She holds advanced degrees from leading European institutions and has pursued further study in the United States as a Fulbright fellow. Ramou has performed internationally at major venues and festivals, earning critical acclaim for her expressive and authoritative playing. Alongside her performance career, she is an active researcher and educator, with a PhD focusing on interwar piano performance and Nikos Skalkottas. She teaches at the University of Ioannina and contributes to various academic and cultural institutions through teaching, research and curatorial work.

-----------------------------------------------------------