The Garden of Eden by Apostolos Paraskevas

The Garden of Eden

1 - Life

MP3 Audio

2 - Adam and Eve

3 - Serpent

MP3 Audio

4 - Voice of the Lord God

5 - East of Eden's Garden

The Life of Death

10 - Awakening of Mournful feelings on Arrival at Work

MP3 Audio

11 - A Visit at the Playground

12 - Sad And Ungrateful Feelings after the Visit-What a Life!

The Lament for the Balkans and The Life of Death were recorded live on June 11, 2002

Apostolos Paraskevas - Guitar
Del Lewis - Narrator
Anna H. E. Paraskeva - Voice
Brenda van der Merwe - Violin I
Kaveh Saidi - Violin II
Mark Berger - Viola
Guy Fishman - Cello
Irving Steinberg - Double bass

Audio Supervision/Editing for Garden, Etudes, Wishes,
and Daedalus by Anthony Di Bartolo
Cover Photo: John Canaris

Cover graphic detail: Michelangelo
The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden (1509-10)

The Garden of Eden

Life
Adam and Eve
Serpent
The Voice of the Lord God
East of Eden's Garden

This suite for solo guitar, represents a description of the Garden of Eden. The music is at times programmatic, as in Serpent and The Voice of the Lord God, romantic, as in East of Eden's Garden, optimistic and joyful as in Adam and Eve and musically absolute as in the first movement Life. Every movement represents some part of life in the Garden of Eden as we have read about it, heard about it or imagined it.

This particular work, which was written in 1992, represents a trouble-free compositional style for me, one based on melodic and predominantly tonal material, and I find in looking back on it that it exudes an innocence not found in my more recent creations.

The Daedalus and Ikaros Journey

Escape from here is what I’ll do
I have a plan I thought it through
The waves beneath us deadly wild
I’ll fly up high, it’s just the sky

That was a dreadful thing to say
To fly so high, you can’t survive.
Your wings, your soul and frozen smile,
The sun will burn and you will die.

The Death you seek I am sure you’ll get,
He’s there for you he won’t forget.
He will be fast and kind with you,
If He survived why not you too?

It’s time to go the sky gets blue
My mind will be so close to you
You can not scare me I have to try,
The time is right, let’s say goodbye.

This guitar and vocal work was originally set on the Robert Frost poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, and was written for part of a lecture series at Boston University given by Lukas Foss entitled ‘Words on Music”. Some years later I set out to publish the work only to find that the estate of the late R. Frost frowned upon this particular practice. After two failed attempts to get permission to use the poem, I wrote my own verse for this composition, (my first actually) using a familiar subject, the story of Daedalus and Ikaros Journey to freedom.

After his arrival in Crete, Daedalus found that Minos would not let him leave. Using wax and feathers he fashioned wings for himself and his son Ikaros. With these they succeeded in flying away, but Ikaros, flying too near to the sun, melted his wings, fell into the sea near Crete, and drowned; Daedalus escaped to Italy only to fall into the hands of King Kokalos who drowned him in hot water.

Wishes for a Beautiful Life

I was almost sixteen when I composed this work and many years later decided it was an important part of my compositional life. Driven by instinct and motoric impulse I wrote Wishes with the guitar in my hands. The work still sounds fresh and vivid in my ears, as it supposes to be by a sixteen year old, the programmatic title helped me to maintain its fast pace and the minor tonality to express maybe a concern…

Lament for the Balkans - for guitar, strings and mezzo soprano

This is my third work with a concertante attitude towards the guitar and was premiered at the Corfu Guitar Festival in 1999 under the direction of Theodore Antoniou. The initial idea and inspiration came to me after the tragic events in the former Yugoslavia.

In this piece the guitar plays a narrative role, here and there supported by the string orchestra expressing visions of grief. Toward the end of the piece a lone soprano voice is heard, from almost far away, lamenting the victims of another war.

The tragedy of all wars in this world is very compelling for me, and as a creator and performer I express my views and feelings through music. For this important reason and with the hope that this creation will communicate a message against war and evoke feelings towards peace, I composed Lament. As a composer, I think I have the obligation and, at the same time, the right to fight using my own weapons against the violence, abandonment, and misery that any war causes.

Etudes I

When I wrote Etudes I back in the eighties I was definitely closer to the guitar than to composition and I consider them as my first approach to composition and music development. Tonally oriented and simple in its construction Etudes I unfolds through a series of variations, opening theme in a minor key, that it returns to at the end transformed into major. It is a lyrical and nostalgic work with moments of agitation and a Greek flavor to it.

Life of Death - Guitar Concerto No. 4 - String version

Death is a serious matter for most of us, one that has intrigued and inspired me for the last ten years. In this work I'm able to explore it artistically while satisfying again a long held desire to perform as the soloist in a concerto that I have written. In the NY premiere in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, the orchestra started without the soloist on stage. The lone guitarist, dressed as the Grim Reaper, joins the orchestra in the first movement as he returns home after a hard days work (collecting souls) to indulge in his favorite pastime, playing with his orchestra of handpicked musicians that he keeps all for himself. Toward the end of the last movement the narrator and solo violinist call “Death” back to work. He leaves slowly and the concerto ends as it began without him.

Narration: Look at you!

You miserable creature! Coming back home, after a hard day's work. How many souls did you have to get and deliver today?

You know, no one likes you! Your presence automatically signals the absence of loved ones.

Yet you have the gall to complain. You say your pay is insufficient, so low, and your work conditions unendurable horrible...You complain all the time. You want to retire, but nevertheless you have to do your job. You claim that you don't have a choice. You say you are a sensitive man. You say your own fears almost overwhelm you.

Once, proudly, you, too, were mortal.

Well, here you are at last! At your home with your "soul mates", your friends and fellow musicians. These are "souls" you yourself collected. The best of the best! You are not at work any more; you're not engaged in a leisure pursuit. Join your orchestra. Forget for a while what you do for a living. Play a little tune. Finale: Put down your beloved instrument Grim Reaper! It's time to pay a visit to a fellow musician a poor suffering fool, practicing just down the street, as if he had all the time in the world.

…text by Apostolos Paraskevas, edited by Paul Kafka-Gibbon

The work follows a classical three movement structure with all movements played attaca and I've introduced a narrator, who serves as the chorus in this modern Greek tragedy, to summarize the programmatic aspects of the work. The Life of Death was commissioned and composed for ALEA III, the contemporary music ensemble in residence at Boston University and received its premier in February of 2001 at the TSAI Performance Center in Boston under the direction of Theodore Antoniou. I am most grateful to Lukas Foss for preparing and rehearsing the orchestra.

The Life of Death and Lament for the Balkans are both works dealing with the notion of Death, and although they can be performed separately (on different occasions), they were conceived as one larger work, sharing the same musical material in the their final movements; This is the circle of Death.