Georgios Demertzis

“The Concerto for Two Violins was composed at the end of the second world war, though Skalkottas never wrote out a full score...It's an extraordinarily dense and ambitious piece...The two-piano Concertino from 1935 is more obviously Schoenbergian in its keyboard and orchestral writing, and so less personal in its style, but both works suggest a genuinely original musical voice.” The Guardian, 19th September 2008 ****

“A fascinating collection of some of Nielsen's earliest chamber-music attempts, student efforts in a charming cod Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven idiom becoming more individual with the F major Quartet. Pleasant listening.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 ****

“Come with me, Nielsen seems to say, and Demertzis follows with a will…. Highly stimulating.” The Strad

“From Skalkottas's earliest works, a personal idiom was clearly in evidence, combining European modernism with the rhythmic dynamism of Greek traditional music, and characterised by a tensile strength and translucency of sound.
Like Bartók, Skalkottas wrote 'popular' music without compromise. The Greek Dances are ideal encore pieces, not least in these suave arrangements for strings.
The Violin Concerto of 1937 is among his major works, with a solo part that's demanding yet integral to the symphonic nature of the score – something that Georgios Demertzis's vital account readily conveys here. The close of the Andante possesses true lyrical repose, before the finale provides fireworks as well as clinching the musical design.
The Largo Sinfonico, completed in 1944, embodies some of Skalkottas's most personal music; a seamless fusion of variation and sonata forms, it's as satisfying formally as it is emotionally.
Nikos Christodoulou's accompanying notes speak of a private musical universe, yet the plangency of the cello theme and the remorseless tread of the central climaxes betray an unease that must surely be inseparable from the time of composition.
The final bars, with the thematic material recast as a series of unearthly chords, feel as much a stoic acceptance of reality as they are a 'harmony of the spheres'. With the Malmö orchestra fully attuned to the idiom, Christodoulou's powerfully shaped reading makes for a compelling experience.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010