Petros Gaitanos

Journey to Ithaka

A Hellenic Musical Journey from Ancient to Modern Times

2 CDs

A new and very interesting album has been recorded by Petros Gaitanos marking his 56th album titled “Journey to Ithaka,” which unfolds in a double CD case.

It results from a request by the award-winning organization, the Faculty Resource Network (FRN) of New York University, the largest private university in the United States. The FRN is a consortium of fifty-four colleges and universities in the United States and beyond.  NYU is known for its many campuses around the world.

This work is the fruit of the first global production of “Ithaka” which was presented by the artist on May 12, 2018 at the American College of Greece.  The event was organized by the FRN in conjunction with a week-long seminar on “Rethinking History:  The New Science of Antiquity,” which brought international faculty to Greece.

The Greek artist, given his talent and experience, created a production which represents Greek music from ancient times to the present.

The journey begins with the Odyssey of Homer narrated in the original Homeric dialect.

Petros Gaitanos appears on the stage to interpret naturally, and as a solo, a poem/song from Cyprus by the Cypriot poet Vasilis Michaelides which invites the soul of the global citizen to rise and sing humbly of misery and of justice.

The journey then opens its wings, the sound deepens and focuses on the Homeric and Hellenistic years.  Included are “the Hymn to the Sun,” “Orestes” by Euripides, as well as other musical themes, played with musical instruments using parts of animals and plants made in the exact way they were made during those periods–instruments like the zournas, gaida, askavlos, ancient lyra, varvitos, formiga, pandoura, diavlos, syrigga of Panos, bone avloi, seistra, crotaloi, kymvala, shells, horns, salpigga, etc.  Listening to this music is very interesting because it highlights through its simplicity the greatness of natural expression through the centuries.  This section is based on the participation of the researcher of ancient Greek music, reconstructor of ancient Greek musical instruments, and founder of the musical ensemble “Lyravlos,“ Mr. Panagiotis Stefos.

It is followed by well-known quotes from the great Greek philosophers Socrates, Aristotle and Plato.

The listener then hears the oldest musical instrument that has survived in humanity called the “Hydravlis” with permission granted by the European Cultural Center of Delphi.  Petros Gaitanos for the first time interprets the most ancient well-preserved song ever found in humanity!  It is the “Epitaphios” of Seikilos who wrote this song sometime in 200 AD on a cylindrical tombstone measuring forty centimeters high on which is engraved in the common Greek of the Hellenistic period an epigram of twelve words and a “melos” (song) of seventeen words together with its music.  On the tip of the tombstone the epigram refers to the person who wrote it and the reason for which he wrote it: «ΕΙΚΩΝ Η ΛΙΘΟΣ ΕΙΜΙ. ΤΙΘΗΣΙ ΜΕ ΣΕΙΚΙΛΟΣ ΕΝΘΑ ΜΝΗΜΗΣ ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΥ ΣΗΜΑ ΠΟΛΥΧΡΙΝΙΟΝ”  meaning “I the stone am an image. Seikilos placed me here as a timeless mark of eternal memory.” In the middle of the stone are the song lyrics together with the melody symbols which are of the so-called Phrygian type «Όσον ζης φαίνου, μηδέν όλως συ λυπού. Προς ολίγον εστί το ζην, το τέλος ο χρόνος απαιτεί” meaning “As long as you live shine. Be sorry for nothing.  Life lasts for a brief while. Time demands its end.”  Petros Gaitanos becomes a bridge, shines light on the message of the tombstone, and carries it with his voice to the present time, almost two thousands year later, expressing the timeless meaning of Greek eternal expression.

Next, the artist interprets in its first global recording the triadic hymn «Σε Πάτερ κόσμων” (“To Thee Father of the World”) dating from the 3rd century AD and highlighting the chanting expression of that period which is on the borderline of ancient Greek and Byzantine music.

The journey continues with musical topics based on ancient Greek music while the boat meets the amazing poem of Kavafis “Ithaka” in its original language.

From the bridge that has been built we move into the period after Christ while the listener hears, in music, poetic topics from the 1st century AD hastening towards the future.

Subsequently we hear songs which express the love and the pain of humankind’s relationship with his or her birthplace, his or her “Ithaka,” and soon afterwards solidly and proudly emerge two Cretan songs which were created during the Middle Ages, “Erotokritos” and a Rizitiko which Petros Gaitanos interprets with pride and with the accompaniment of a Cretan lyra and a lute (laouto) recording personally for the first time the expression of the Cretan song “On a high mountain on a rooted cliff sits an eagle . . . .”   This section ends with a “Pentozali.”

Ancient and contemporary sounds swirl, sometimes with lyricism and sometimes with dynamism, highlighting the wide spectrum of the Greek landscape and form of expression.

Next, we have the coded song by Yiannis Markopoulos “Zavarakatranemia.”  As the composer himself explains, the word “alleluia” is not the known Hebrew word but the Greek word “alleluchia,” with the difference that the letters “ch” have been removed. The word “Zavara” comes from the word “Zeus” which Cretans used very often, since Crete is considered the birthplace of Zeus. “Zavara” also may mean “pole banners.”  Other predominant words may be interpreted as follows: “Nama” is “baptism” or “mother.” “Lama” is “blade of a knife.”  “Nemia” means “blown by the wind” or “peacefulness.” “Ileos” means “mercy” or “compassion.”  And “katra” means “black” (tar).

The mystery of life and death, immortality, emerges musically to express the eternal riddle of humankind.

The artist encounters the songs of the Greek islands, where the endless bright blue and the sun are dominant.   The sounds of Asia Minor and of Constantinople transport us to the seas and lands where the Greeks wrote their history.

The listening continues with Rembetiko, and the artist sings a song by Markos Vamvakaris.

Following this we hear songs of the 20th century written by Greek composers and poets from Greece as well as from abroad, with the aim of highlighting the inner world of the Greek and his search, in relation to his destination, with the eternal expression of love and the deep respect towards the face of the mother. The artist sings one of his most popular songs, “A mother is like cool fresh water” in the Pontic dialect, and he narrates its lyrics for the first time in the English language.

The symbolism of the journey is lost in infinity and embraces the eternal and universal Mother, our Virgin Mary, in whose honor are chanted the Apolitikio of the Akathyst hymn “Ti Ipermaho” together with the stunning “Encomnium of Holy Friday,” and the “Epitaph of Jesus Christ,” examples of superb poetry, music and meanings!  In referring to the God/man, these hymns distill thousands of years of the Byzantine Empire from the first centuries up to the Middle Ages and express the deep eternal love of the Greeks for God!

Concluding the journey, the artist interprets another hymn of incomparable beauty and unsurpassed value and meaning—a hymn for which Petros Gaitanos became well-known to the general public as its key interpreter–the “Hymn of Love” from the first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, a composition of the teacher and great chanter Emanuel Chatzimarkos.  Here, Petros Gaitanos narrates the hymn for the first time in the English language, and he chants it in ancient Greek.

Our listening is completed with the National Anthem of Greece, a creation in poetry by Dionisios Solomos which is set to music by Nikolaos Mantzaros.   In the many lyrics of the
incomparable national poem, our national poet expresses lyrically and vividly with his pen,  his inner quest and the meaning of being Greek throughout time.

As the epilogue of our journey, we encounter the words which the artist has expressed in his album “Free Seas”: “I am searching for why, my little homeland, my bright blue white light, your wounds are open my little homeland, in the world’s arena.   Open seas I plow, the blue that You consumed, through art to create free seas, free seas.”!

The journey comes to its end and very slowly opens the horizons for new journeys, pursuits and destinations. Every person is looking for his or her “Ithaka” choosing one as  a free and sublime creation in the conceived  and yet to be conceived reality.

This project will be released initially to colleges and universities in the United States for educational purposes in order for the music of Greeks throughout the centuries to become more widely known. The insert with the lyrics and details of this production will be in English as is all the prose heard in the recording.

Petros Gaitanos sings in nine dialects of the Greek language, a feature that highlights the evolution of the Greek language throughout the centuries: Cypriot, Pontic, Cretan, medieval Greek, purist Greek, modern Greek, common ancient Greek of the first century AD as well as the Homeric and Hellenistic dialects the Greeks were using during the BC period.

He interprets in English the “Hymn of Love” and the “A mother is like cool fresh water,” as well as a song about the Mediterranean in five languages: French, Spanish, English, Arabic and Greek.

This project represents a wide spectrum of sounds, rhythms, words, music, musical paths and mastery, preserving the eternal tradition of the same root, a bridge from the past to the future of Greek expression and pursuit, evolving globally with both common and great goals.

Petros Gaitanos in collaborations with local authorities, with educational institutions as well as with local famous artists will be presenting this project in concerts in different cities and countries throughout the globe!