CD ECM Records Eleni Karaindrou: Euripides - Medea

2011

Sokratis Sinopoulos Constantinoble Lute, Constantinoble Lyra
Harris Lambrakis Ney
Nikos Guinos Clarinet
Marie-Cécile Boulard Clarinet
Alexandros Arkadopoulos Clarinet
Yiorgos Kaloudis Violoncello
Andreas Katsigiannis Santouri
Eleni Karaindrou Voice, Director
Female Chorus
Antonis Kontogeorgiou Chorus Director

Greek composer Eleni Karaindrou’s collaborations with stage director Antonis Antypas have generated some of her most powerful music. “Medea”, like the earlier “Trojan Women”, comes out of this association. Created to accompany performances at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, the music vibrates with emotional intensity. Karaindrou gives her themes to a small ensemble, its sound-colours creating an ambiance both archaic and contemporary, as textures of santouri, ney, lyra and clarinets are combined and contrasted. Even with reduced instrumental forces the composer seems to imply an orchestral scope. Giorgos Cheimonas’ Modern Greek adaptation of Euripides provides the lyrics, movingly sung by a 15-piece chorus under the direction of Antonis Kontogeorgiou and, on two pieces, by the composer.

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Using only eight musicians, three of them clarinetists and three of them playing Eastern instruments that sound very exotic to Western ears, Karaindrou has created a score that blends an ambient classical sound with modes and feelings of Ancient Greek music. It is as if the musicians of Euripides’s day slept for 2,500 years, woke up, and began blending their aesthetic with some of the more modern sounds they hear around them. In addition to the musicians, Karaindrou uses a women’s chorus and herself as a solo vocalist […] Perhaps much of the music’s effectiveness is due to the recorded sound, which has an extraordinary depth to is so that all the lower notes played by the various instruments (but particularly by the cello) reverberate in an unusual way. […] this is music that speaks to something very deep inside of us, strange music that is (for lack of a better term) very strongly feminine, and perhaps because of this, music that summarizes the psyche and feelings of Medea better than any other I’ve ever heard.
Lynn Renée Bayly, Fanfare

The relatively short pieces linger long in the mind, and in the case of the all too brief opener ‘Argos Voyage’, are quite simply haunting with the sound of the Constantinople lute supplied by Sokratis Sinopoulos. [...] collective voicings permeate the wonderfully joyous ‘Backwards to their sources’. It is worth pointing out that the vocal polyphonies that are so endearing on this release are inspired by musical encounters throughout the Mediterranean including Corsica where collective singing is revered. In a wider context, the music serves as an act of resistance in a time of economic and financial onslaught.
Tim Stenhouse, UK Vibe

Eleni Karaindrou has created some beautiful music despite the dark undercurrents of the drama that it depicts. [...] Despite the fury and rage that unfurls as the plot unfolds, much of the music is calm and tranquil with Karaindrou’s tremendous orchestrations bringing together traditional instruments such as santori, ney and lyra with the more familiar sound of the clarinets. The voice of Karaindrou is heard on ‘Medea’s Lament I’ with its mournful lyrics of self-pity and despair and joined the female chorus under the direction of Antonis Kontogeorgiou for ‘Medea’s lament II’, and it is the blending of female voices with the gentle restraint of the instrumental pieces that combine to create a music that is quietly and enigmatically compelling and disturbing by turns. The depth of the music can often be at odds with the darkness of the play itself, and this lends a delicious tension to this beautiful album.
Nick Lea, Jazz Views

Here, for a prodution of Giorgios Cheimonas’ modern greek adaption of Euripides’ ‘Medea’ is her gorgeously ritualistic musical journey through ‘Euripides’ bleak world of poetry’ [...] Karaindrou freely admits that its brooding, droning intensity wouldn’t necessarily cohere as drama on disc without producer Eicher reshaping it to do so. The result is quite beautiful and not much like any other music you name.
J.S. Buffalo News

This is music created for the Medea production put on by stage director Antonis Antypas, as performed at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. The Medea enacted there is Giorgos Cheimonas' adaptation from the original Euripides version of the play. Musically it has a timeless, exotic quality. Eleni Karaindrou utilizes a 15-member chorus; Eleni herself effectively contributes a solo part. Plus there is an 8-member chamber group with strong Greek and Eastern Mediterranean associations. The ensemble consists of three clarinets, ney, a player of the Constantinople lute (sounding much like an oud) and lyra, then cello, the santour, and the bendir.With these means Ms. Karaindrou creates a music of great evocative beauty, with its ancient scales and traditional instruments providing sound color and spatial punctuation, the vocals from chorus and soloists extending the sound and all-in-all creating a through-composed modern ambient pomo sort of work that is very identifiably Karaindrou-esque. Even in the purely instrumental passages the reflective, haunting melodiousness of Karaindrou comes through. It sounds less like ‘authentic’ ancient Greek-Eastern Mediterranean music as the idea of that as filtered by an ‘authentic’ Eleni Karaindrou sensibility. And it is one of her very strongest works at that. The performances are excellent, the sound all you'd expect from ECM
Grego Applegate, Gapplegate Music Review