Greek Classic’s Masterpieces: Dionysios Solomos

cd2Introduction
The Free Besieged
Hymn to Liberty
The Woman of Zante
To a Nun
Lambros
Christ is Risen

 

Members of PolyPhonia have mainly contributed to the third and fifth track. The music in the first and fifth track is composed by the director of PolyPhonia, Nikolaos Kotrokois.

Hymn to Liberty
The hymn comprises 158 stanzas, in which Liberty is identified with Orthodox Hellas. The thematic parts included in the selected excerpts are the ancient splendor, the sufferings of slavery, the sensation caused by the Greek struggle, the upmost instants of Tripolitsa and Messologgi, the victorious sea battles and, last, the Liberty’s desperate appeal to the Greek people for unity and fraternity.

The noted musician Nikolaos Mantzaros, a close friend of the poet Solomos, composed music for 24 stanzas. The first two ones were enacted as the Greece’s National Anthem on 1856.

To a Nun
Angels are descending from heaven to praise the lady who is entering the monastic life. ” … (Solomos) managed, together with the sanctity of virginity, to illustrate with plasticity the most mystical concepts of Christianity, Christ’s divine love for His creature in the archetypal gracious image of His still Bride, the Creation, a mystery which the christian poet explains juxtaposing the other mystery, the Resurrection, … ” [I. Polylas]