Recorded Works
Joseph James: Concerto for 3 Bouzoukis and Orchestra
The Philharmonia; conductor John Gibbons; Costa Rialas Bouzouki solos
Track listing
1) Zeimbekiko
2) Hasapiko
3) Syrtaki
Nikos Skalkottas: Eight Greek Dances for Orchestra
4) Hostianos
5) Epirorikos II
6) Kleftikos
7) Peloponnisiakos
8) Epirotikos I
9) O Choros tou Zalongou
10) Arkadikos
11) Vlachikos
Joseph James’s concerto features a virtuoso performance by Costa Rialas (who plays all three solo parts) in a work inspired by the dances of the Greek underworld hashish cafés.
The popular music of Greece is rooted in a struggle against authority. The prevailing themes of Greek songs and dance are strife, violence and loss. After the forcible exchange of Christian and Moslem populations between Greece and Turkey in 1922-23, huge shanty towns grew up around Athens, Piraeus and other large cities. Their underworld culture was centered on the bars where gangsters and their women could smoke hashish, and the music played there – Rembetika – took over and transformed several traditional dance forms. The songs and dances were accompanied by the bouzouki, a long-necked lute with metal frets and three or four courses of strings, played with a plectrum. Rembetika was viewed by the authorities as subversive, and at times the songs would be banned, bouzoukis would be smashed, and the Zeimbekiko, the principal dance, was forbidden.
The Bouzouki Concerto by Joseph James is inspired by Rembetika, and each of the movements is in the form of one of the characteristic dances: the Zeimbekiko, or “Dance of the Eagle”, a solo dance in 9/8 with slow deliberate steps, exploding into sudden leaps and spins; the Hasapiko, or “Butcher’s Dance”, for two men, who have to keep in perfect step with one another; and the Syrtaki, a variant of the Hasapiko. Complex improvisational passages form an important element of the music, reflecting the nature of the dances.
Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949) was the outstanding Greek composer of his generation, a pupil of Schoenberg and one of the finest exponents of serial technique. His 36 Greek Dances for Orchestra (1931-6), among his few tonal works, are based on traditional dances from different regions of Greece and are notable for their brilliant orchestration and daring harmonic twists and turns.
First published: 1997