Eleni Karaindrou - Music For Films (1991)

ECM 1429 Year 1991

Greece's film critics and music journalists have long felt that Eleni Karaindrou's compositions for cinema transcend the soundtrack's conventions. Her music does not merely accompany or prettify a film, they argue, but is an essential element of it. Writer Nikos Triantafillides, nothing that Karaindrou's music is as vast in scope as the time-transgressing sequence shots of Angelopoulos, says that "in all these hundreds os feet of film, Eleni's music represents the blood not shed on the screen. Her constant presence..reveals something deeply spiritual beneath the lyricism." George Monemvasites talks of a music made "to wound and liberate" as it creates "new visions and ideas" which counterpoint or parallel the cinematic action. Yet the music, heard independently, seems to insist upon its autonomy. The collection at hand is not "film music" in the limited sense but rather music that is inherently cinematic in its reach: It establishes an emotional climate. Hints at storylines it invites a listener/viewer to take up and develop, paints sky and seacapes in subtle, muted hues and, sometimes, simply, sings.

Eleni Karaindrou was born in Teichio, an isolated mountain village in the Roumeli region of central Greece, and still retains memories of the sound of her childhood:"the music of the wind, rain on the slate roof, running water. The nightingale's singing. And then the silence of the snow." Sometimes the mountains would echo to the sound of flutes and clarinets played at festivals in the small Village Square.


Jan Garbarek Tenor Saxophone
Vangelis Christolpoulos Oboe
Anthis Sokratis Trumpet
Nikos Guinos Clarinet
Tassos Diakoyiorgis Santouri
Vangelis Skouras French Horn
Petros Protopaps Flute
Andreas Tsekouras Accordeon
Christos Sfetsas Cello
Eleni Karaindrou Piano, Vocal
String Ensemble directed by Lefteris Chalkiadakis
and others


Track list

01. Farewell Theme (5:07)
02. Elegy for Rosa (1:06)
03. Fairytale (2:07)
04. Parade (2:10)
05. Return (3:04)
06. Wandering In Alexandria (1:36)
07. The Journey (2:08)
08. Scream (1:37)
09. Adagio (2:26)
10. Fairytale (2:08)
11. Parade (2:03)
12. Elegy For Rosa (1:08)
13. Rosa's Song (3:35)
14. Improvisation On Farewell And Waltz Theme (3:57)
15. Wandering In Alexandria (1:34)
16. Song (1:35)
17. Farewell Theme (6:05)

Ripped with KAudioCreator, 0% read errors. Excuse the poor quality of the covers, this is the best my lousy scanner can do :(

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