Message from Themos Mexis (composer Rhodes 4/11/11)
Hi Dimitri and Apostoli,
I've finally received your Cd's and have been able to listen to "All that is you'" at this present time. I've listened attentively and I found the work quite pleasant and inspiring with a touch of the unexpected...which I like!!!.
Apostolis has a mature mellow and warm voice and I believe he is quite capable in singing diversified musical styles.. Besides that he's turned out to be quite a handsome young man. I believe Apostolis has a lot of potential.
The music-songs in general is quite pleasant MOR Greek music, with the definite touch of someone who knows his work, very well done Dimitri. I liked your intros and some of your harmonic movement! structures. Keep up the good work. I'm sure both of your parents are very proud of you both.
Regards from both Ellie and me.
Themos Mexis
THE GREEK SOUND IN THE MUSIC OF DIMITRIS FOTIADIS
We don't need to know about Greek music to enjoy the "Songs of our neighbourhood". Their appeal is immediate. But it will certainly add to our appreciation of Dimitris Fotiadis' work if we can be aware of its background.
Yes, this is Greek music - even though most of it was written in Australia, and not all the musicians in this concert are Greek. But what is it that makes it Greek? It's not merely the language of the words - though that's very important - nor is it merely the fact that the orchestra includes bouzoukis - though they contribute a lot to the unmistakably Greek sound. Nor is it simply the vibrant and vigourous Greek rhythms, the modal melodies, the passionate affirmation of life - all features which have helped to make Greek music internationally known and popular. What gives Dimitris' songs their particular quality is his integrated, creative use of a wide variety of Greek musical resources.
Dimitri is continuing and developing a broad musical movement which began in Greece around 1960. It's the movement which we link with names like Hadjidakis, Markopoulos, Loizos, Leondis - and above all perhaps with that astonishingly gifted and versatile composer (and theorist of the movement) Mikis Theodorakis. These are all highly individual composers whose work and ideas are often very different. But they have some points in common: all of them have tried to create popular but "thinking" music, music with meaning, and they have all drawn in different ways on earlier types of Greek music in order to create something new but accessible to the majority of Greek people.
The new Greek music is mainly vocal. A lot of it consists of settings of poetry by well known writers such as the Nobel prize-winners Seferis and Elytis, or Yannis Ritsos, whom Aragon has called the greatest living poet" of our times, or earlier Greek poets such as Solomos, Palamas and Karyotakis. The poets chosen are not necessarily Greek - there are fine settings of Lorca and Neruda, and of the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet (whose work has been widely translated into Greek). But it is quality and meaning that count, rather than a distinguished name, and composers are just as likely to set to music works by unknown writers.
A typical form is the song cycle - a series of songs more or less closely linked by a common theme, based often on sections of a single long poem - though composers have also written oratorios (such as Theodorakis' "Axion esti") and works for the cinema and the theatre (including productions of Ancient Greek drama).
Greek composers have a wonderful variety of musical forms and traditions to draw on. Many have drawn - directly or otherwise - on the unaccompanied chant of the Greek Orthodox Church, a highly developed art with its own complex system of musical modes. The composer Theodorakis - to name just one - is an experienced church cantor with a profound knowledge of Orthodox music, which he has used to great effect in his own work.
Another rich source of inspiration is the wealth of Greek folksongs (dhimotikά tragoύdhia) and dances - an unwritten music passed down by ear from generation to generation over the centuries, in the small communities which until recently were the home of the majority of Greek people. The roots of this folk music are very ancient indeed, and yet it is not a static art form; singers and musicians were always open to new ideas, and were able to assimilate new influences, new experiences, new instruments, and make them part of the tradition. The result is a tremendous wealth of styles, different in every region of the Greek world, from the lyrical dance tunes of the Aegean islands to the sombre, heroic songs often heard in mainland and northern Greece, from the smooth kantάdhes of the western Ionian islands, with their distinct affinity to Italian music, to the rapid dance rhythms of the Pontus region in north-eastern Asia Minor. There is equal variety in the instruments used; older types such as the three-stringed Aegean fiddle (lyra) and the various kinds of large-bodied lute (including, the fretted laούto and the unfretted ούti), and the many varieties of bagpipe, co-exist with instruments such as the clarinet, which since its introduction in the nineteenth century has become a characteristic sound in Greek music - used, incidentally, in an effective way by Dimitris Fotiadis.
In the growing cosmopolitan cities of the nineteenth-century Aegean world - Constantinople, Smyrna in Asia Minor (where Dimitris' grandfather was born), Salonika, and of course the new Greek capital, Athens - a new kind of urban music could be heard, performed by professionals, less localised in style and receptive to influences from both west and east. Bands were often extremely multicultural - able to perform in languages such as Turkish and Armenian as well as Greek. Still popular today is the Smyrna style, with its combination of eastern melismatic melodies and rhythms recalling the style of nearby Aegean islands, and its emphasis on instruments such as the violin and the kanonάki (plucked zither) rather than the bouzouki which became prominent in later urban music.
This cosmopolitan culture was destroyed by the First World War and it’s aftermath, in particular by the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922, when the surviving Greeks of Asia Minor - well over a million of them - were turned into refugees, crowding into the cities and towns of mainland Greece.
Meanwhile, however, in mainland Greece (and in Greek communities overseas) a new kind of urban music was developing, which later became known as rebetika. Sometimes called the Greek blues, rebetika music seemed to express the experiences, frustrations and aspirations of people struggling to survive in the overcrowded and impoverished cities of Greece before, during and after the Second World War. It was here that the bouzouki (a modern version of a very ancient family of instruments, the long-necked lutes, known in the Greek world since classical tines) began to acquire its leading role, together with other distinctive instruments such as the baglamάs ( miniature, treble bouzouki) and the sandoύri (a large, zither-like instrument struck with hammers). Like their predecessors in Smyrna and Constantinople, rebetika musicians made much use of the so-called "eastern" modes - melody-styles based on a variety of scales quite different from the standard western major and minor. Their pieces often began with a "taxίmi" - an improvised introduction in free rhythm, in which the soloist explores the main features of the mode (or "'road" [dhrόmos] to use the musicians' own word for it). The verse and chorus is usually in a dance rhythm - often that of the zeibekiko (a slow 9/8) or hasάpiko (4/4). Both of these dances are derived from the older traditional culture of the region, and versions of them are known as folk dances in particular areas.
For many years Greek intellectuals tended to look down on rebetika. It eventually came to be recognised as part of the Greek musical heritage partly as a result of talks and writings by composers such as Hadjidakis and' Theodorakis, and by their use of its styles and its characteristic instrument, the bouzouki, in their own work.
In "Songs of our neighbourhood" Dimitris Fotiadis has mainly set to music words by Greek poets living in Sydney. Some are poems which arise from the everyday experiences, often bitter experiences, of an expatriate; others express a commitment to social issues like the peace movement and the movement for democracy in Greece (thus "Polytechnic anniversary" refers to events of 1973). Two ("At the window" and "Neighbourhood") are love-songs in a style which reflects the popular music of Smyrna, with which his family is connected, early in the century.
He has used elements of his Greek musical heritage in an eclectic and inventive way, always paying great attention to the meaning and mood of the words. His use of rhythms may surprise some listeners, because although familiar Greek dance rhythms can often be heard, they are not necessarily the same throughout a given song; they are quite likely to change in the middle to suit the mood. This is not, after all, "traditional" music, but an individual style which uses the resources of tradition to create something new. His choice of instrumentation is similarly free of any blind adherence to formulas., though the two bouzoukis help, as we've mentioned, to give that distinctive Greek sound, and the use of clarinet and violins also reflect part of the Greek heritage.
"At the window" and "Neighbourhood" are composed, appropriately, in a style which will remind many listeners of the music of Smyrna; especially characteristic are the long drawn-out, melismatic voice parts in free rhythm at the beginning and the end of the first of these. The first two pieces of the second half are in a jaunty, jokey style which reflects the mood and the music of the Greek shadow theatre "Karagiozis" - which is of course the subject of the words in the second song. The rhythm of the zeibekiko - traditionally linked with a particularly passionate rebetika dance originally performed solo by men - can be heard at various points, including the songs "Marrickville" and New day", where its associations seem very appropriate.
The enormous energy of Dimitris' composition and performance is certainly one of the memories which we will retain from this concert. (Like, for example, in "Comrades, let's go", near the end of the second half!) Yet one thing which impressed me most, listening to these songs, was the way that he avoids emotional overkill, and in fact sets some of the most tragic and passionate of the poems to lyrical, elegiac melodies which allow the words to speak for themselves. "In the shadow of the bridge" is a fine example of this.
My enthusiasm for Dimitris Fotiadis' music is not that of a specialist critic, nor that of a distant observer; I have watched his talent develop since he first started composing tunes on the piano at the age of about eight. So I will leave the task of objective and informed judgement to others better qualified than myself. Of one thing, though, I am absolutely sure: we are going to hear a lot more of Dimitris Fotiadis in the years to come. Gifted as he is with a profound feeling for the vast and varied resources of Greek music, open as he is to the possiblities of combination with other musical traditions, with his rich talents as a composer and arranger, and with his thoughtful approach to the meaning of his work, Dimitri is showing us the first fruits of a career which promises to surprise and delight us in the future.
Dr. Alfred Vincent
Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Modern Greek, Sydney University.
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