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The principal work her is Skalkottas’ Concerto for Two Violins, composed in 1944-45, but left in short score at the time of the composer’s death four years later. The present orchestration was made by Skalkottas specialist Kostis Demertzis. The concerto is interesting in that it combines two strands of Skalkottas’ musical oeuvre: the original serial techniques developed by this student of Schoenberg and the interest in popular Greek music, here exemplified by the inclusion of a rebetiko theme in the second movement. Another work in the vein of what has been called Skalkottas’s ‘Mediterranean serialism’ is the Concertino for two pianos, while the brief concluding Nocturnal Amusement is a light-hearted show-piece for xylophone and orchestra.
Nikos Skalkottas: Concerto for 2 Violins (orch. K. Demertzis), AK 24
I. Allegro giocoso - Tres vite
II. Variations sur un theme grec Rembetiko: Andante
III. Finale and Rondo: Allegro molto vivace
Nikos Skalkottas: Concertino for 2 Pianos and Orchestra, AK 20
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Allegro giusto - Allegro vivace
Nikos Skalkottas: Morceau characteristique (Nocturne-divertimento), AK 29
Morceau characteristique, AK 29, "Nocturne-divertimento"
19th September 2008
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“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.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.