Ioannis Fulias: Rena Kyriakou’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, opus 18: its history, a first analytical approach, a critical re-evaluation and an attempt to place the work among the Greek art music creation

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Ioannis Fulias, “Rena Kyriakou’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, opus 18: its history, a first analytical approach, a critical re-evaluation and an attempt to place the work among the Greek art music creation”, Polyphonia 31, Athens 2017, p. 9-71.

The present study focuses on the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, opus 18 / ΑΚΣΡΚ 74, that is the largest and most ambitious work of the eminent Greek pianist and composer Rena Kyriakou (1917-1994), while marking, at the same time, the crowning and the (abrupt) ending of her – officially known – creative career. With the aid of numerous sources, the creative and performance history of the work is clarified, before proceeding to a thorough music analysis of it, also in reference to several other works by Kyriakou. Thereinafter, the reception of her concerto by the music critics who attended its first public performance, in December 1943 in Athens, is systematically and critically investigated, in order to be ascertained the extent of the inadequacy of these critic essays for a modern objective evaluation of the work, as well as the importance of its re-approach from a zero basis, with the assistance of the (previously applied) analytical methodological tools. Furthermore, the necessity to place this specific work in the wider context of its genre and style, as they were cultivated in Greek art music, resulted in a comprehensive overview of all piano concertos written and (only partially) performed in public by Greek composers until 1945 (by N. Skalkottas, P. Petridis, M. Kalomiris, P. Kyriakou, Y. A. Papaioannou and L. Lalauni), along with a first attempt to comparatively examine the stylistic origins and the compositional tendencies represented in this repertoire.