Special concert performed by violinist Laertis Kokolanis and pianist Eleni Dafekas on March 11 in the hall of the Parnassus Philological Association. Bypassing the works of the popular repertoire, they formed a program of interesting proposals, which they successfully supported. This is exactly what you would expect from venues like Parnassus, which, thanks to their history and their (geographical) position in the city, can attract an audience and offer new musicians in projects that are different from those already in existence.

The “3 B” in the name of the program of two musicians does not refer to the famous German trio Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, but to three less popular, but especially interesting composers of the 20th century: the Hungarian Bela Bartok, the Polish Gracina Bacevich and the Swiss-Jewish Ernest Bloch.

Among them, Bartók is the best known and in many ways the most important. The program began with his first “Rhapsody”, one of the pieces of chamber music, which, thanks to its musical language, is more accessible to the general public. Dedicated to the master Hungarian violinist Jozsef Szigeti, it draws inspiration from the traditional dance that accompanied the typing process and is known as “verbunkos”.

This music has already found an important place in the work of another Hungarian composer, Franz Liszt. With Bartók, the impression of traditional goals retains its strength unchanged and at the same time fits well into the musical language of modernism in the first decades of the 20th century.

At Parnassus, works for violin and piano by Bartók, Bacevich and Bloch were performed.

This was followed by the extremely interesting Partita for Violin and Piano by Gracina Bacewicz. The prolific writer, Polish violinist and composer left behind numerous works of chamber music, including the 1955 four-part Partita. The work was written immediately after the composer had a severe car accident, and is distinguished by simple and poetic language, which culminates in the third movement “andantino melancolico”, similar to a mournful monologue. Kokolanis and Dafeka responded with equal success both to the expressiveness needed by the two slow movements, the first and third, and to the nervous mood of the second and fourth movements.

The evening ended with the “Secret Poem”, as the second Sonata for Violin and Piano by the Jewish-Swiss composer Ernest Bloch is called. The intensely lyrical work is an answer to a dream that Bloch had because of a large dose of barbiturates that he took due to some kind of illness. The composer introduces into the dialogue the symbolic playing of the Creed and other church texts of the Christian faith with Jewish musical themes.

Kokolanis and Dafeka conveyed the music plastically and accurately, emphasizing, above all, its dreamy character. Overall, the two musicians focused on the emotional charge of each of three very different works and successfully expressed it in their own language.