| Επιτομή: |
Written and premiered in 2022, exactly 100 years after the catastrophe of the city of Smyrna, Requiem for Smyrna, by George-Emmanuel Lazaridis, is a 75minute work for symphony orchestra, mixed choir, SATB soloists, piano, santouri and electric guitar based on the breathtaking poetry of Seferis’s Mythistorema. It is structured in seven movements that are interconnected through musical and narrated episodes that act as bridges and underline the poetic side of the work. Requiem for Smyrna is a work defined by its profound symbolism. This materializes constantly and is perceived simultaneously in three dimensions (physical, mental, spiritual) while being portrayed through multiple means. These means include such aspects as the thematic material chosen, the orchestration, the use of harmony and the structure as well as the constant conversation, either in agreement or disagreement, between the poetry and the music. At times, there are multiple symbolisms happening simultaneously in the foreground, middleground and background, in literal and abstract ways, in narrower and broader senses. The present thesis comes as an effort to bring out the many dimensions of this masterpiece. Complex notions like those of homeland, mother, memory, past and present, friendship and betrayal, belonging, hope, pain, death and life or even God, are all essential to Requiem for Smyrna. This thesis focuses on all these concepts that are hidden in the music and brings them out in a way that proposes an understanding of the work that aims to make the readers’ and listeners’ experience of the Requiem deeper and richer in every way.
|