The Hong Kong-based Naxos label has been showing that there's nothing wrong with the classical music scene that innovative releases featuring unusual repertory can't cure. This disc seems to inaugurate a new series with its "Greek Classics" title. The combination of Greek origin and saxophone-and-orchestra instrumentation might seem impossibly arcane, at least to non-Greeks, and the buyer will discover to boot that the works by the two best-known composers included, Mikis Theodorakis and Nikolaos Skalkottas, were ...
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The Hong Kong-based Naxos label has been showing that there's nothing wrong with the classical music scene that innovative releases featuring unusual repertory can't cure. This disc seems to inaugurate a new series with its "Greek Classics" title. The combination of Greek origin and saxophone-and-orchestra instrumentation might seem impossibly arcane, at least to non-Greeks, and the buyer will discover to boot that the works by the two best-known composers included, Mikis Theodorakis and Nikolaos Skalkottas, were transcribed for saxophone, not originally written for it. Still and all, this is an absorbing program featuring characteristically Greek takes on a variety of contemporary compositional principles. The Theodorakis Cretan Concertino is based on a variety of mostly pastoral sounds heard on the vacationland island of Crete. Some of the saxophone's lines sound influenced by Arabic music, and the use of a saxophone in place of the original violin may help bring out this aspect. The work is full of...
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