“Evening Legends” for voice and piano (1940 - 41).
Most
composers of the Greek National School (roughly: 1st half of the century)
cultivated in an often felicitous way the form of the song for solo voice with
piano accompaniment. In this form Manolis Kalomiris (1883-1962) and Emilios
Riadis (1886? - 1935) may be said to be unrivalled masters, though the first
has openly admitted most sincerely that he envied Riadis for his achievements.
It has not been fully realised to date that Kalomiris was the only composer of
this school who wrote song cycles, Liederkreise
in the sense of Schubert’s Winterreise
or Schumann’s Frauenliebe und leben.
At times, Riadis’ masterpieces may be assembled in what are rather collections
of songs under a common title, and in other instances, such collections with a certain thematic unity
can easily be located in other composers’ work - lists - yet they cannot really be called
“song cycles”.
Perhaps only Kalomiris wrote stricto
senso “song cycles”, among which the most prominent place is occupied by
the Evening Legends (1940 - 41) and You passed by (1946) both based upon
verses from the collection Evening Legends by the poet Constantin
Hatzopoulos (1871 - 1920). In order to discover song chronological boundaries
of the National School, to the C.N.C. Cycle (1954) by Hadjidakis, based upon
verses by the composer and to the incomparable Six Eliot Songs (1955), by Jani Christou (1926 - 70).
It
would be least hypocritical nowadays, 20 years after the composer’s death, to
conceal the fact that the Evening Legends,
the masterpiece of Greek musical literature, was the fruit of a soul -
consuming love affair, the depth of feeling and torment of which the composer
has expressed in a way comparable with similar achievements by Schubert,
Schumann, Wolf or Mahler. The object of Kalomiris’s passion at 57 (as clearly
indicated by the undated initial “Dedication”, on the composer’s own
verses, obviously written after the cycle was finished), was a singer,
strikingly beautiful and in the prime of her youth. Apparently she did not
share Kalomiris’s passion. Yet she has been the composer’s “Immortal Beloved”, as he calls her in
the Dedication - the allusion to
Beethoven’s unsterblich Gelibte is
all too evident.
Except
for the opening Dedication, Kalomiris has
meticulously dated everyone of the songs. And we are astounded to discover that
even during the days of fascist Italy’s invasion of Greece, passion was
devouring the composer’s soul to such an extent, that he, who then embodied, so
to Hellenism, the fiery patriot, had no other thought than to alleviate his
torment by composing three of the most beautiful and poignant songs of the
cycle: You have come (20 -
30.10.1940), Sorrow (27.10.1940) and The
shivering dusk (29.10.1940). The composition of the cycle began on the
20.9.1940, on board the s/s «Samos», with The
Ships, and the last song, Dusky came the evening, was written a few
months later, on New Years’ Eve (31.12.1940) and on New Year’s Day (1.1.1941).
We can easily imagine Kalomiris’ loneliness and desolation in his house at
Palaeo Phalero, on this New Year’s Day, upon which Greeks, as far as the war
allowed, were trying to temper their agony as to its outcome by trying to
create as best as they could a festive atmosphere.
Blended
by passion, the verses of Hatzopoulos, with the penetrating melancholy of their
exquisite lyricism, the melodic line of the voice and the piano accompaniment,
all merge into a unity in such an organic way as to cause our admiration. The
tonal climate is essentially that of the Greek folksong modes, yet it is
Kalomiris who pours out his tormented soul in music. The vocal line, in
admirable inflections or melismas (mostly chromatic), translates the abrupt
transitions of the verses from desire and longing to despair, often taking to
“word – painting” (in a vocal work the musical depiction of the meaning
of an individual word or an idea associated with it, e.g. an ascending passage
for a word like “height” or a dissonance for a word like “pain”). So does the
piano, often in a subtly impressionist manner; (The song that mourns, The rain on the windowpane) which depicts an
inner landscape of the soul. This surge of pathos an unfulfilled desire in most
of the songs seems to be expressed by a melodic formula, appearing under
various forms: an ascending fifth rushes upwards, then the melodic line tends
more or less to fall stepwise, as if realising the impossibility of fulfilment.
(Score published by Michael Constantinidis, Athens, no M. 1419 K., undated).
G.L.