I Xenitia String Quartet - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.857811

I Xenitia ("Foreign Lands") belongs to a genre of Greek folk music called ‘Rebetika’, songs which express the strife and heartache endured by a people expelled from their homeland. Originating from Greek refugees living in Asia Minor - under Turkish domination - during the early 20th century, Rebetika music began to flourish in the urban ghettos of larger Greek cities (Athens, Piraeus) following the Greek diaspora in 1922. Over 1.5 million refugees brought with them Eastern Mediterranean-influenced music which, combined with the joy, sorrow, and difficulties of their new life in the urban underworld of Greece, evolved into the songs of Rebetika. I Xenitia features a simple, Persian-esque melody, played by the first violin and later expounded upon in a short improvisational-like cadenza (or taximia, in Rebetika parlance). The second violin - taking the role of a guitar - provides rhythmic grounding and an icy pedal tone color. An eerie harmony in harmonics is sung by the viola, which also interrupts occasionally with a secondary melody; the cello line provides a yearnful, sardonic bass line for his string quartet brethren, occasionally joining the melodic dance with the first fiddle. Imitating the traditional instruments of a Rebetika band - a guitar-like bouzouki, a politiki lyra (bowed instrument of Persian origin), clarinet, cymbalom, oud (European lute relative), and finger-cymbals, among others - our arrangement utilizes a variety of stringed instrument ‘extended techniques’. Among these are various timbral applications of pizzicato and glissandi, as well as harmonics and ponticello. Featured in Apollo's album, 'EUROPEAN FOLKSCAPES,' available on Navona Records. www.navonarecords.com www.apollochamberplayers.org.