|
|
|
|
Athens Concert Hall, 4-6 November 2003
Manos Hatzidakis’ To a little white quahog
Through the composition To a little white quahog, a small collection of pieces for piano composed in 1947, Manos Hatzidakis declined the “sentimental” direction of music, and, according to his words, this work was written as an opposition against this direction. Through the controversy, composer finds the potential of creative renewal of the artistic style, of renewal of musical genres, harmonic language and textures. Opus 1, which is a composition of suite type, compounds 10 pieces of independent form, and of antithetical character, tempo, measure, and texture. Most of them present different kinds of Greek traditional dances, as well as several genres of European music: march, nocturne, pastoral. Particularly interesting is the general structure of the suite: here, Hatzidakis revives the principle of combining pairs of antithetic dances, from which in the 15th-16th centuries derived the dancing suite.
© Musicology