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[vkioulaphides]

Greetings, one and all.

After (alas, TOO) many delays and complications, my partners-in-crime and I will soon be issuing the 2007 volume of our GrecoMando Editions, this time titled Sentimentalia: Songs From Belle Epoque Athens. Ye of our official "hit list" # will be hearing from us as soon as the print-job is finished, within a week-or-so.

Risking no accusation of immodesty —since I did not actually compose any of this music, but only arranged it for mandolin and guitar— I must say that these songs are true gems, culled from the popular music of that era. I love each and every one of them!

Yet I will say no more here, lest this thread become Classifieds-appropriate. You of the "inner circle" will hear from us soon. Same deal as always.

Cheers,

Victor

P.S. Once this edition "takes to the skies", onwards to the mando & harp work for J.B. A composer's work is life-long...

[Alex Timmerman]

Hello Victor,

I look very much forward to see and play of couse, the Sentimentalia! If I'm not yet on the 'list' I'd like very much to be included.


Cheers, Also on behalf of Tom, Ruth, Pauline Ferdinand etc. ect. etc.

Alex.

PS. The Harp - Mandolin duo is also something to look forward too!

[vkioulaphides]

Thank you, Alex. Yes, you most certainly are on the "Hit List"!

This is LOVELY music, indeed: so wonderfully nostalgic, so sentimental... and, of course, the mandolin is the PERFECT instrument for the style!

As for the mandolin and harp piece, well... I have already started thinking about it; I hope to put pen to paper by next weekend.

Cheers,

Victor

[vkioulaphides]

HA!

I am happy, indeed delighted to report that, less than 24 hours after our "media blitz", this supposedly extinct repertoire is nearly sold out! (This, of course, in context with the fact that we cannot afford to have THOUSANDS of copies printed all at once.) Time to contact the print-shop again...

Yet what really matters is that many, MANY mandolinists around the world will bring these lovely melodies to life again. And that, of course, was the whole point to begin with. I will not tire of my mantra, in hopes that it may some day be taken seriously: the mandolin was THE popular instrument in Greece, for more than a century; it is time, perhaps, to recognize, revisit, and relive its joys.

I have communicated the good news to my partners abroad, and they are equally delighted-- and more than a little amused, since I, among the original Composers' Collective, have carried the lonely torch of Greek mandolin music as a personal "pet project". (My colleagues have long moved to other projects of their own.)

Pick on, mando-friends!

[vkioulaphides]

To reply collectively to a FAQ, as it were:

The Sentimentalia are an anthology of previously self-standing melodies compiled in one, continuous medley; this is not a through-composed work of music.

That being the case, the performers may wish to, say, repeat a melody they particularly like, maybe twice, maybe even more times; they may also omit a segment, should they be under constraint of time on a particular occasion.

So, while this anthology was deliberately compiled with a built-in crescendo starting with slower, more reflective songs, speeding up through lilting waltzes, and ending with a couple of rousing "Hi-Ho" tunes, it is not in any way carved in stone.

I therefore hereby grant the Editors' pre-emptive stamp of approval to any and all variants our kind and gentle clientele might come up with. The only requirement: that it all be played with feeling. #

Pick on! #

Cheers,

Victor

[Martin Jonas]

In a most impressive performance by the postal service, Victor's Sentimentalia dropped into my mailbox in North Wales today, four days after they were posted in NYC.

I've had a very quick sight-read of the first few tunes, and can confirm it's another lovely collection of evocative melodies blending the feel of the Belle Epoque with a distinctly Greek flavour.

Is there any chance you could identify the names of the individual tunes, Victor? I have been trying to remember why the melody running from bar 17 to 36 is so familiar. I'm sure I've both heard and played it many times before, but my memory comes up blank. Probably a really obvious connotation I'm missing. The closest I can come up with is that the flavour of the tune is much like that of Johan Kok's "Dancing Doll" (which can be heard in a lovely mp3 by Ralf Leenen here). However, Dancing Doll is only vaguely similar, whereas I'm sure I know that tune -- as soon as I started playing it I was able to complete the melody barely looking at the score.

Anyway, for all those who didn't get any of the first print run, make sure you get your order in time for the second (and in the meantime get Victor's three Greek mandolinatas!). These are by and large technically straightforward pieces, in contrast to some of Victor's (great!) original compositions which can be technically quite demanding. So, even if you've tried and failed to play some of the free music Victor has made available over the years, don't let this put you off the GrecoMando Editions.

Martin

[vkioulaphides]

Thank you, Martin, for such a ringing endorsement! (And, yes, a most impressive performance by the Postal Service!)

I am just back from a rehearsal at the opera, and due for (belated) dinner, so I will have to be brief for now: the song that starts at measure 17 is titled "With a Little Guitar", and is a typical, charming sample from the repertoire of yesteryear's strolling musicians, singing and playing along the narrow, cobblestone alleys of Plaka, the Old City of Athens. I will provide the other titles soon, once I verify them again, based on the numerous (and often dilapidated) old folios I have fished out of vintage music bins across Athens over the years.

Thanks again, Martin, for your kind words. I cannot tell you how glad I am! It is MOST heartening to see that music that up till only very recently had been given up for dead is coming back to life, all across the globe. And that, of course, was the whole point, the raison-d'etre of this non-commercial, non-venture, non-business-concern that is GrecoMando Editions.

Second print coming soon... #

Cheers,

Victor

[vkioulaphides]

"Is there any chance you could identify the names of the individual tunes, Victor?"

Working on it... but must run, as I have two, back-to-back holiday shows at the opera tonight. So far, I have located printed matter —however delapidated, moth-eaten, or tea-leaf stained— with most, but not all songs in my anthology. You see, SO much of this is music I simply, well... know, as in by ear, by memory, by birth and family. When I first heard these songs, still a toddler, it obviously never occurred to me to ask what exactly they were called. And I must tell you that my mandolinist uncles and godfather were notoriously prone to *ekhm* improvising lyrics they did not quite remember.

I will do my best; on occasion, however, I will have to tell you what the first phrase of the lyrics goes like, in the hope that that, perhaps, is the "official" title. Some (hopefully few) songs, I only heard played on mandolins, not sung, so my guess would be worth little.

One must also remember that, as many of these songs were never totally free-standing compositions but "numbers" from popular operettas, they hardly ever had "formal" titles to begin with. In most cases, the names of the operettas altogether are long forgotten; the names of the composers themselves are also blurred, as those folks plagiarized each other's work unabashedly. Finally, public domain has set a heavy blanket of obscurity atop all that information. My uncles, born early in the 20th century, had heard those songs from THEIR parents and uncles; all the composers were already long deceased by then.

As promised, I will do my best.

Cheers,

Victor

[Alex Timmerman]

Hello Victor,

This morning the post brought your Sentimentalia! Just in time for us (Ferdinand and myself) to have a go at it. And the songs are as you said, beautiful. Be sure they will be played here in Zwolle. Thanks very much again.

Best, Alex

[vkioulaphides]

Thank you, Alex. (I remain SO impressed with the postal service!)

A personal admission: however much a composer might love his own compositions in private, it is generally held as bad manners, not to say colossal vanity, to go around saying so in public. Thus there is always a pent-up, repressed tension between what a composer might feel and what he may actually say. Small wonder we're all nuts...

In this case, however, I find this to be a most psychologically liberating experience: I can shower these songs with all the love and affection I have for them, yet risk no accusations of immodesty, as I wasn't the one who wrote them. Joining the chorus of happy reviewers is, for once, politically correct.

Warmest regards to you, dear Alex, and ALL my friends in Zwolle and thereabouts.

Cheers,

Victor

[Martin Jonas]

I am just back from a rehearsal at the opera, and due for (belated) dinner, so I will have to be brief for now: the song that starts at measure 17 is titled "With a Little Guitar", and is a typical, charming sample from the repertoire of yesteryear's strolling musicians, singing and playing along the narrow, cobblestone alleys of Plaka, the Old City of Athens. I will provide the other titles soon, once I verify them again, based on the numerous (and often dilapidated) old folios I have fished out of vintage music bins across Athens over the years.

Many thanks for that title, which I am sad to say rings no bells whatsoever. One of the reasons I was so pleased that the music showed up so timely on Thursday is that my mother arrived on a brief pre-Christmas visit over from Germany yesterday morning. She's a big fan of the three mandolinatas, so she's very excited indeed about the new collection. Her immediate reaction to the tune starting at measure 17 was also "I know this very well -- now what is it called again...". So, clearly, I know this tune from my upbringing in Germany (rather than from its vague similarity to Kok's Dancing Doll, which my mother doesn't know), but its precise German identity has been lost in the mists of time.

By all means, don't go around spending lots of time digging up song titles. I quite like knowing a bit more about tune titles and provenance of traditional tunes that I play -- it comes from the time I've spent being interested in folk music -- but chances are that they will mean very little to me in this instance. Perhaps it's more romantic to say that they have re-emerged from the collective Greek folk memory, as incarnated in Victor's brain.

Martin

[vkioulaphides]

Thanks for cutting me some slack, Martin. So far, this is the best I can do, as I have spent some of today —once the opera season is over— in the exercise of merry music-digging. So, then:

mm. 1 - 16: "A Drachma's Worth of Jasmines". Clearly a VERY old song, from the time one drachma (when they still existed... think one third of a U.S. penny) bought you a whole bouquet of flowers!

mm. 16 - 24: With a Little Guitar

mm. 25 - 36: "That's What's Called Greece". A song voicing a soft-pedaled sort of patriotism, defining Greece as good friends sharing good times and the very humble, quotidian joys of a snack, a drink, a song, under the starlit sky.

mm . 38 - 49: I know it, I KNOW it... (still digging)

mm. 50 -57: "In the Night Quiet"

mm. 58 - 68: "Youth Passes Fast"

mm. 69 - 76: "I Will Reap Roses"

mm. 78 - 85: "Nostalgic Rhythms"

mm. 86 - 101: "I Will Quit Wine" (ironically, almost ALWAYS sung while... drinking wine! # #)

mm. 102 - 116: "On Your Coral Lips"

mm. 120 - 150: " "Oh, Come!"

mm. 152 - 180: "Words of Love"

mm. 181 - 195: "Fly Into My Warm Embrace"

mm. 196 - 243: "I Have Cut a Daisy"

mm. 243 - 259: "Send Me Some Flowers, If You Wish"

mm. 260 - 276: (oh... who knows?) #

By looking at the titles alone, you get the idea of the sentiments expressed. This was a time when sweetness and charm reigned supreme. I do not mean to idealize the Athenian Belle Epoque, of course, but only to preserve its music, as I have known it in its native place, from within the repertoire of urban/folk mandolinists of yesteryear. And that's all an honest anthologist can hope for.

Pick on! #

Cheers,

Victor

[Alex Timmerman]

Thanks Victor, and Martin of course!

I'll put the titles in the music; they just give these wonderful melodies that imaginary little bit more...


Thanks,

Alex

[vkioulaphides]

I will be glad if the titles add something to the "color" of the time and place these melodies came from.

At the same time, I am sure you realize how these sweet, gentle sentiments must have seemed painfully ridiculous to the "generation after" of Greek society, one profoundly traumatized by the two Balkan Wars (the local equivalent of World War I), the Catastrophe of 1922, and the fascist interbellum. Singing of your sweetheart's "coral lips" in the 1930s would surely have made you look like the Perfect Idiot-- quite unlike the elegant dandy your uncle had looked like, singing the very same songs.

Yet performing these melodies now on mandolins alone bypasses all that "historical awkwardness" in the texts. Besides, times have changed-- as they CONSTANTLY do: these old songs are regaining popularity, however slowly and timidly, even in Greece nowadays. A revival may not, after all, be totally out of the question...

Cheers,

Victor