Georgios Axiotis - Orchestral Works

Georgios AXIOTIS (1875-1924)

Orchestral Works

Sunset (1923)

Prelude and Fugue (1914)

A Love Trilogy, Symphonic Impressions (1915)

Remembrance from a Ball (1915?)

Lyrical Intermezzo (1910s?)

Like a Game (1910s)

New Festival Opera-Symphony Orchestra Sofia

Byron Fidetzis

rec. 2003, Sofia, Bulgaria

Georgios Axiotis was born in Mariupol, Ukraine, near the Sea of Azov in 1875. His father was the Mykonian scholar Panagos Axiotis (1840–1918); his stepmother Melpo Patuna (1853–1911) was from Constantinople. The composer’s birth mother was Ukrainian, a member of the family’s service staff (Panagos’ wife had cancer of the uterus and could not have children). In 1887, the family settled in Athens and Axiotis began his musical training. He continued his studies at the Conservatorio di Musica di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, receiving instruction from one of the most important teachers in Italy at that time, Paolo Serrao (1830–1907), who also taught the Greek composer Georgios Lambelet (1875– 1945). After obtaining his diploma in 1901, Axiotis returned to Greece and became actively involved in the country’s cultural affairs. He was the first unpaid director of the Conservatory of Piraeus (1903–05) and with Lambelet co-founded the art magazine Kritiki (1903–04).

A vocal critic of the Greek music education system, Axiotis co-wrote an essay entitled Apo tin Istorian eis ta Pragmata (‘From History to the Facts’) in which he condemned Athens Conservatory under its director Georgios Nazos. Axiotis’ view was similar to that of Lambelet: while he did not deny the greatness of German music, he was opposed to the ‘Germanisation’ of music education in Greece which, through Nazos, tended to translate into a sterile ideological regime, as though he were imposing Procrustean rule on musical creation. Axiotis’ proposal, which reflected his own compositional outlook, advocated for a curriculum with its roots in Greek folk music and the Mediterranean character, and that was related to the aesthetics of Italian verismo (relating to naturalism). His views clashed with those of the Athens Conservatory’s inner circle, and at some point he returned to the island of Mykonos where, alongside composing, he became involved in public affairs, serving as President of the Community of Mykonos for most of 1915. He remained on the island for the rest of his life. He died of echinococcosis at Evangelismos Hospital in Athens on 16 October 1924.

Axiotis’ compositions were first performed in 1923 and 1924 at the Hellenic Conservatory in Athens under the direction of Dionysios Lavragas (1860–1941). A planned concert of works by Axiotis and Manolis Kalomiris (1883–1962), also at the Conservatory, never took place, overtaken as it was by Axiotis’ death. Axiotis was the father of three children, two of whom continued the family tradition in arts and letters. His daughter Melpo (1905– 1973) became one of the 20th century’s leading Greek writers; his son Panagos (1910–1991) was a distinguished architect. Displaced during the occupation of Greece by the Axis powers, Melpo lived until the mid-1960s in East Berlin as a political refugee. She had left Greece on 22 March 1947 and by the time she returned in 1965 her father’s manuscripts had been all but lost. Panagos delivered the compositions in his possession to Theodoros Vavayannis (1905–1988), conductor of the Athens State Orchestra, who performed four of them after the war. Unfortunately he discontinued this effort after 1950 and Axiotis’ scores went into storage without being catalogued, but in 1995 several of the works were rediscovered in an envelope marked ‘Lavragas scraps’ (and also containing Lavragas’ Prelude and Fugue), and since that time the author has set about restoring and making available for performance each of the rescued compositions.

Orchestral works

A handwritten list of Axiotis’s compositions for orchestra, delivered by Panagos Axiotis to the conductor Theodoros Vavayannis, catalogues the works as follows:

Intermezzi:

Lyrical

Sunset

Like a game

Symphonic Impressions:

On the mountain (or On the mountain ΙΙ or While snowing)

In the meadow (or On the mountain Ι)

At the dance

Miscellaneous:

Rememberance of a Ball

Preludio e Fuga

The same list also mentions works for string quartet. Of these, Scherzo and Fuga are written exclusively for string quartet, while the only four-part quartet was presented as a suite for string orchestra on 30 August 1948 by Athens State Orchestra conducted by Theodoros Vavayannis.

The eight orchestral works on this recording seem to be the most important compositions by Georgios Axiotis and are certainly the most valuable of his surviving works. The approach to orchestration would indicate that the composer did not hear these pieces performed. However, possessing as he did an exceptional instinct for sound balance and a remarkable imagination for timbre, this was not to his disadvantage but instead became a stylistic trait which, aside from the aesthetic interest, is of notable historical significance.

Axiotis developed a compositional style that drew on the verismo school and followed harmonic and morphological trends prevalent across Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this time Greek national music was the topic of much public debate. George Lambelet and Manolis Kalomiris had set out their theoretical views on the subject, while works such as Rhea (1908) by Spyros Samaras (1861–1917) and the First Greek Suite (1903) by Dionysios Lavragas led Axiotis to embark on his own quest for a new authentic Greek style. In A Love Trilogy this ambition is clearly present in the presence of folk music, such as the Smyrnean folk song Klapsete Matia Klapset (‘Cry my eyes’), and extensive use of monophony without harmonic elaboration.

Sunset

Sunset (Greek: Deilino) was premiered on 3 June 1923 by the orchestra of Hellenic Conservatoire under the direction of Dionysios Lavragas; it was performed again by Athens State Orchestra on 16 December 1945 directed by Theodoros Vavayannis. The piece is typical of Axiotis’ compositional style: short, succinct and with a simple, straightforward form. Its musical language clearly belongs to the first decade of the 20th century. With the exception of some Greek modal harmonies, the musical idiom remains transnational in that its musical origins are obscure. The discreet orchestration, in subtle hues, conveys the melancholy of a sunset, perhaps recalling the composer’s remote island.

Prelude and Fugue

Only the instrumental parts and the last page of the orchestral score have survived from the Preludio e Fuga, presenting a unique set of problems when it came to deciphering, interpreting and performing the music. Using a score derived from the individual parts given to me by the musicologist George Leotsakos, I corrected mistakes the copyist had made in the individual parts and changed other details such as unintentional notes and errors with the dynamics. I also amended areas that seemed to me out of style. Let it be noted here that Axiotis himself, in a letter dated 17 December 1914 and addressed to his fraternal friend the Myconian lawyer and scholar Yiannoulis Bonis (1878–1960), wrote:

You received the two partiture... The partitura of Preludio e Fuga was made in a hurry – to keep a copy for myself – and may have a couple of copy errors – missing accidentals or something similar – but they are obvious to a musician. I have the parts of the orchestra, if needed, and in time I shall send them to you. I know not, of course, what impression these works of mine may make upon Marsick*. But what I can tell you in confidence is that they are two pieces of work that have been studied and composed by a man who may lack inspiration but has an abundantly deep knowledge of the Art. So I think that counts for something, and it’s enough to compel an orchestra conductor to perform them.

* Belgian violinist, composer and conductor Armand Marsick (1877–1959), who taught at the Athens Conservatoire from 1908 to 1922. He was the chief reformer of the Conservatoire’s symphony orchestra that preceded the Athens State Orchestra.

This work received its (probable) first performance by the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the author at Athens College Theatre on 27 May 2000.

A Love Trilogy

In the composer’s correspondence with Bonis there are two mentions of the Trilogy. The first is on a letter dated 26 April 1915, in which the work is merely referenced (helping to establish its approximate chronology). The second mention is in a letter dated 10 February 1924, in which Axiotis discusses the four-part Symphony Suite but essentially mentions only three parts as he writes:

...take into account the idea that influences my ‘Symphony Suite’, part of which is also the: At the Dance*. It is about a young man who meets his darling on the Mountain, in the Meadow and at the Dance. At the dance, which is one of the 4 parts of the Suite, after the young man invites her and they dance for a while, he takes her aside and they talk. But they return to the Dance with more fervency, and thus this encounter ends.

* A reference to a forthcoming performance of the work for the 14th Folk Concert of the Greek Conservatory by the orchestra of the conservatory, under the direction of Dionysios Lavragas. The concert took place at Ideal Theatre in Athens on 24 February 1924, the only time Axiotis heard any of his orchestral works performed.

Unlike the supranational musical idiom of Sunset, On the mountain clearly states Axiotis’ intention to express himself in a Greek way using Greek musical elements. The title Symphonic Impressions was given by Axiotis’ son; the composer himself gave the title A Love Trilogy.

On the plain is a symphonic intermezzo first performed by the Athens State Orchestra under the direction of Theodoros Vavayannis on 1 December 1946 in Olympia. The thematic material has a strong folk character clearly stated in the prolonged monophonic statement in the introduction.

At the ball loosely follows a rondo form. It presents an image of Greece characterised by folk music and folk dance and alludes to pieces written around the same time that share a similar aesthetic, such as the Scherzo from Symphony No. 1 ‘Levendia’ (1920) by Manolis Kalomiris and the Scherzo from Symphony in B minor (1920/21) by Eleni Lampiri (1889–1960).

Remembrance of a Ball

Remembrance of a Ball was probably composed in the mid-1910s and, like Sunset, has a transnational music dialect with programmatic elements. Following a lyrical introduction, the music adopts a waltz rhythm that returns frequently throughout the piece. The inherent lyricism of the piece captures the atmosphere of Greek late- Romanticism; the orchestration is extremely delicate, and the form, as with Axiotis’ other orchestral works, is balanced and functional, bringing to mind the exquisite orchestral miniatures of Russian composer Anatoly Liadov (1855–1914). We have no evidence of the work being performed other than the performance on 12 May 2005 at Athens Concert Hall, with the author directing the Athens State Orchestra.

Lyrical Intermezzo

The first in Axiotis’ Intermezzi series expresses a transnational musical idiom with veristic influence, influences the composer had absorbed as a student in Naples at the end of the 19th century. Stylistically it is far from the musical naturalism of his other works. The simple structure of the Lyrical Intermezzo is based on two main ideas: the first intense and impassioned; the second contemplative and lyrical. The first known performance took place on 9 November 1947 at the Olympia Theatre with the Athens State Orchestra under the direction of Theodoros Vavayannis.

Like a Game

This piece was never performed during the composer’s lifetime. Its performance on 26 September 2012, with the Thessaloniki City Symphony Orchestra conducted by the author, is likely its first public outing. As implied by the title, Like a Game, it is a cheerful piece in a very loose sonata form. The orchestral writing is simple, with double woodwinds and brass instruments, timpani, harp and strings.

Byron Fidetzis