Ballade, Op. 56 (1994)

Description:

The symphonic fantasy Ballade, Op. 56, inspired by the well-known Greek and broader Balkan folk song “Of the Dead Brother” (Του νεκρού αδελφού), has fascinated me since my youth.

However, the story of Areti, who marries abroad and returns home guided by the ghost of her dead brother Konstantis, only to die with her mother in each other’s embrace, is not easily transformed into an art form other than poetry.

The perfection of its form, reminiscent of an Aeschylean tragedy, the richness of its language, the simplicity of its expression, and the immense power continuously emitted by the poetic words, make this text unique in its kind.

Thus, there was no thought of transforming it into a musical work of the Lied or symphonic poem type.

The only feasible way was to convey, with the help of abstract art like music, the profound sense that remains after reading the poetic text, allowing the characters to move freely within the framework of the “myth” and imagination: the Mother, who, deprived of her only daughter, loses her nine sons and remains alone and desolate “like a reed in the field”; the dead Konstantis, who, galloping on his supernatural steed, fulfils the promise he made to his mother to bring back her daughter; and finally the tender and unsuspecting Areti, who accompanies death without realising it.

The Ballade was completed in Athens in the spring of 1994.

This text was written for the performance on 2 June 1998.

-This is a near-verbatim translation of Sicilianos’s Greek text.