Seven poems by Kostas Karyotakis

Musical setting for voice and piano

Birth of the work Athens, Berlin 1951-1959 The composition of the song cycle Nepenthe and Satires [Νηπενθή και Σάτιρες] spanned the ’50s. At first, in the period 1951-52, Zoras composed four songs, entering the cycle in a manuscript chronological catalogue of his works as Nepenthe and Satires, 4 Poems by K. Karyotakis, and listing the songs in the following order: 1. “Pen-pusher” [“Γραφιάς”], 2. “Career” [“Σταδιοδρομία”], 3. “Michaliós” [“Ο Μιχαλιός”], and 4. “March: Funereal and Vertical” [“Εμβατήριο πένθιμο και κατακόρυφο”] (no such manuscript has been preserved). Two years later, in 1955, he finalized “Bronze Gypsy” [“Μπρούτζινος γύφτος”], reworking a 1925 first version (see Zoras and Karyotakis below), and in the following year he completed “Nobility” [“Ευγένεια”]. It was then that he must have copied out all six songs in the only final manuscript that has been preserved,[5] placing them in their definitive order. In 1959, having settled in Berlin, he composed “Childish” [“Παιδικό”]; we do not know if it was originally meant as part of the cycle or as an independent composition. In any case, it formed part of the cycle as penultimate song by the time of the first performance of the work by mezzo-soprano Nounouka Franghia-Spiliopoulou and pianist Yannis Papadopoulos on 1 Feb. 1967, at a Song Recital of Works by Leonidas Zoras (Terpsichore Hall, The Athens Hilton Hotel).[6] The work in its entirety was revived almost 40 years later, by baritone Spyros Sakkas and pianist Dora Bakopoulou, during the events entitled Leonidas Zoras: A Hundred Years From His Birth (5-16 Dec. 2005, Goethe-Ιnstitut Athen; organized by the Leonidas Zoras Archive).

Contents:

1. Nobility
   
2. Pen-pusher
   
3. Bronze Gypsy
   
4. Career
   
5. Michaliós
   
6. Childish
   
7. March: Funereal and Vertical