For the Style of the Olive Tree

Για το Ύφος του Ελαιόδεντρου

Piano.





2015   CC BY-NC-ND

Wide Sea (Thalassa Platia)

An arrangement for jazz piano trio.
Original music by Manos Hadjidakis.
Arranger, performer: Spyros Raftopoulos

This is an arrangement in memory of my dear old friend, the great jazz pianist, Markos Alexiou.

 

Photos collected and adapted by Mara Roth.

The photos are used (and some of them are modified) according to their specific Creative Commons license. If you want to use any of them, you may only do so according to the same license, or better contact the artists directly. Please visit the addresses given and have a look at the originals and other great works by these artists. The photos' locations in the video, any applied transformations and the links to their originals are mentioned below. Any transformations or adaptations made here were not meant to 'correct' the original photos in any way. They were only made in order to serve a certain minimalistic approach. We needed just seas, horizons, light and unity. We sincerely hope that the artists will not have serious concerns about our use of their fine works, otherwise we do apologize.

The photos:

00:00:00;00 See-ming Lee, Afternoon Flight.https://www.flickr.com/photos/seeming...

00:01:16;05 Mara Roth, Strips.
N/A.

00:01:36;09 Elizabeth Haslam, cambria skies [...]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhasla...

00:02:07;06 Bill Lapp, horizons 14.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blapp/4...

00:02:30;17 Samuel D23, Horizon.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dsae/60...

00:02:24;03 Wonderlane, dark seascape.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wonderl...

00:03:14;24 Niklas Sjöblom, Sunset mirage. (Sea detail. Photo cropped).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/taivasa...

00:03:47;24 Remi Lanvin, Sunset over the Baltic sea.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rlanvin...

00:04:02;22 Brendan Murphy, minimal sea (B+W). (No horizon. Photo cropped).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/murphye...

00:04:23;03 See-ming Lee, Water patterns before the storm.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/seeming...

00:04:47;10 Dachalan, St Non's Bay abstract.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/5494539...

00:05:13;01 Elizabeth Haslam, Super moon at moon set. (Made greyscale. Horizon detail. Photo cropped).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhasla...

00:05:44;01 Karsten Kneese, Blue Tideland.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/karsten...

00:06:01;15 Jenny Downing, shades of grey. (Variation without boat).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-p...

00:06:36;06 See-ming Lee, Serenity_SML.20130330.7D.37143.C23.BW
https://www.flickr.com/photos/seeming...

00:07:10;16 Mara Roth, Gradient study.
N/A.

00:07:54;03 Mara Roth, Sea-Sound Wave (image based on Gustave Le Gray's, Brig upon the water. Part of the photo as background, without the Brig)
N/A.

This work is offered under a Creative Commons license. It may be freely copied and redistributed in any medium or format. You may either redistribute it as a whole or you may extract and redistribute just the music. However the video and the music in it are offered under a Non-Commercial Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. If in doubt please contact the arranger (email: raftsp@yahoo.com) and ask for a written permission.

Wide Sea (Thalassa Platia)

Original music by Manos Hadjidakis.
Arrangement for jazz piano trio by Spyros Raftopoulos.




This arrangement is in memory of my dear old friend Markos Alexiou, the great jazz pianist.

Please also watch the above video version of the piece, which has some great minimalistic seascape photos.

Treatise on Mannequins (parts I-II)

for Orchestra 

The first version of the piece was composed in 2005. A first revision made in 2009 resulted in a shorter (and lighter in terms of instrumentation) version, which was performed by the City of Thessaloniki Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alkis Baltas. The current third version was made in May 2014 and its instrumentation is that of the original. 

The title of the piece comes from the homonymous chapter of a novel titled "The Street of Crocodiles" by the Polish Jewish writer Bruno Schulz. The book is also known under the title "The Cinnamon Stores".  In this chapter and section of the book, the father of the hero, a strange persona of the father of the author, improvises a witty narration about the dressmaking dummies that are used by some female dressmakers working in his house, in order to attract their interest. His speech, gradually becoming  almost delusional, results in a treatise on mannequins, a kind of hymn to the magnificent pettiness of matter and form. His improvisational delirium leads him to the vision of a generation of strange humble beings, which is the result of some fantastic fermentations, a generatio aequivoca (a dubious generation). The author through the original maturity of his perpetual youthfulness, sets a miraculous microcosm, where the miracle can possibly be hidden in some forgotten corner of the courtyard, or in a frazzle of the wallpaper of an old room. These very little miracles are being negotiated in this musical work, too.

The composition is in four movements. The first and the second are played without interruption.

Image: "Mannequins" by tanakawho 


Treatise on Mannequins

Part I.    Mannequins - attacca (1:12):
Part II.   Treatise

Treatise on Mannequins (part III)

for Orchestra


Treatise on Mannequins

Part III.    Treatise Continuation 



For more information please see parts I-II.

Treatise on Mannequins (part IV)

for Orchestra 


Treatise on Mannequins

Part IV.  Treatise Conclusion



For more information please see parts I-II

Cries of the Night (part I)

for String Ensemble (1998)

Part I title: "Death comes more often at Night"

Composer: Spyros Raftopoulos
Symphony Orchestra of Bulgaria
Conductor: Alkis Panayotopoulos





This work, composed in 1998, bears the same title as a poem by the composer's wife Rea Kountoura. Two lines of that poem have been used as headings for the two sections: "Death comes more often at night" and "Love even more often". Despite the fact that the two poles of the love-death antithesis lend each other their dominant shades of meaning, the setting remains vague because each pole attracts - in a metaphysical sense almost contains - its opposite.

This composition is included in CD #3 of the collection "Works for Orchestra by Greek Composers". The collection is a release of four CDs with works of symphonic music, which is proudly presented by the Union of Greek Composers.

Greek Composers Union
Ministry of Culture 

Recorded in 2003 at Sala Bulgaria of Sofia