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Marek Zebrowski Leaving Alexandria A MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO CONSTANTINE CAVAFY ALEXANDRIAN  1863 – 1933 A. D.

  Alexandria, Egypt – the city where Constantine Cavafy lived most of his life (and where he died in 1933) – was home to a large Greek community, as well as a vibrant crossroads for many cultures and civilizations throughout history. In his poetry Cavafy freely exploits some personal subjects, often placing them in Alexandria’s glorious past – from the Hellenistic period al the way up to the more recent years of the Arab conquest.

    From the 150 or so poems (published by the author mainly for distribution among his friends), the selection of 12 presented here under the title Leaving Alexandria is designed to represent a broad spectrum of Cavafy’s subjects and styles.

    Poems like The Horses of Achilles and The God Abandons Anthony are historical ones, based on Cavafy’s reading of Homer, [Plutarch] and Shakespeare. Trojans and Satrapy likewise represent the poet’s personal reflections on the meaning of historical events in his private life. The better part of the other poems chosen here belong to Cavafy’s most tender and intimate creations. With their strongly erotic undercurrent and a bittersweet sense of resignation, they occupy a special place in the modern poetry canon.

    Leaving Alexandria was written by Marek Zebrowski during the fall of 1997 on the Ligurian coast of Italy while he was on a fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation. A world premiere of the cycle took place at the Teatro Carlo Felice, the Opera House of Genoa, in 1998.

    Marek Zebrowski was born in Poznan, Poland, and began studying piano at the age of five. After graduating with highest honors from the Poznan Music Lyceaum, he went to France, where he was a pupil of Robert Casadesus and Nadia Boulanger. Mr. Zebrowski came to the United States in 1973 and continued his studies of piano with Russell Sherman at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he received his Bachelor’s  and Master’s Degrees.

    Hailed as “firm and eminently musical” by The Boston Globe, “strong and noble” by The Washington Post, and accorded highest accolades by the world press, Mark Zebrowski has appeared  extensively as soloist in recital and with symphony orchestras throughout  the world. He has recorded works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Scriabin and Prokofiev for the Polish Radio, appeared in Public Television broadcasts in the United States and recorded works by Ravel, Prokofiev and Schumann for Apollo Records in Germany.

   Marek Zebrowski is also recognized worldwide as a composer. The catalogue of his compositions includes orchestral and chamber works, numerous piano compositions and piano transcriptions. He has received commissions from Meet The Composer, The New England String Quartet and Premiere Productions and Central Europe Trust in The United Kingdom, among others.

    Recently Mr. Zebrowski’s piano composition Ex tempore won a second prize at the 1997 International Composition Competition in The Hague, Netherlands. During the Fall of 1997 Mr. Zebrowski was a recipient of the Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship in Italy, where he composed two song cycles for baritone  and piano. World premieres of his latest compositions took place in The Netherlands and in Italy during the Spring of 1998.

    In addition to his activities as a pianist and composer, Marek Zebrowski has been a frequent lecturer for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Harvard University and The New England Conservatory of Music, and a contributing writer for the Boston Book Review. Renowned as a teacher and interpreter of music, Marek Zebrowski has given numerous master classes and coached various chamber music ensembles and orchestras. Currently Mr. Zebrowski is teaching in the Boston area and is on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Chris Pedro Trakas, baritone, is celebrated for the variety of his repertoire and for the intense artistry he brings to his performance in opera, recital and concert venues. His operatic credits include Harlekin in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Metropolitan Opera, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro with the Festival dei due mondi in Spoleto, Italy, and its counterpart in Charleston, Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande with the Basel Theater, Dandini in La Cenerentola with The Washington Opera, his New York City Opera debut in La Bohème and his European debut in London’s Barbican Centre in Handel’s Giulio Cesare.

    The highlights of Mr. Trakas’s 1997-1998 season included the world premieres  of Wallace and Korie’s Hopper’s Wife with the Long Beach Opera and Robert Kapilow’s The Polar Express in Boston with the Musica Viva ensemble. Chris Trakas was also a featured soloist in Jewish Voices in America at the 92^nd Street “Y”, and was heard on the National Public Radio’s Performance Today program, celebrating Schubert’s bicentennial. During the spring of 1998 he sang Pelléas in Germany and appeared in recitals across Europe, including the world premiere of Leaving Alexandria, which later in the year he also introduced n the United States.

    In the previous season Mr. Trakas made debuts with the Saint Louis Symphony in the title role of Don Giovanni and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. During the 1995-1996 season, he performed in New York’s Lincoln Center Great Performers series. He has also sung with the Frankfurt Opera and at the Spoleto Festival.

    As a winner of the Walter W. Naumburg Award for Concert Singers (sharing first prize with soprano Dawn Upshaw), the Young Concerts Artists International auditions and a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist grant, Mr. Trakas has appeared in recital at Alice Tully Hall and the Kaufman Auditorium in New York, at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in Washington and at the Ravinia Festival.

    Mr. Traka’s numerous appearances with world’s leading orchestras featured a diverse repertoire ranging from Bach, Berlioz and Brahms to Cimarosa, Bernstein and Orff. Chris Trakas’s recordings of works by Ravel, Respighi, Barber, Spohr, de Falla and Poulenc, amomg others can be found on Koch International Music-masters, Evzon and ASV labels.

MAREK ZEBROWSKI

(1997)

Chris Pedro Trakas, baritone

Marek Zebrowski, piano

*

translated from Greek by

Theoharis C. Theoharis

N° 23 THE SATRAPY mp3 (1032Kb)

What a calamity, given how ready you are

for fine, distinguished tasks,

that this unjust fate of yours

always denies you encouragement and success;

that mean habits block you,

both pettiness and indifference.

And how horrible the day you give way

(the day you allow it all and give way)

and tramp off to Susa,

and go to King Artaxerxes,

who places you, favourably, in his court,

who makes you gifts of satrapies and such.

And you accept them with despair,

those situations which you do not want.

Your soul demands other things, cries for them;

commendation from the city’s rulers and the Sophists,

contested, priceless, clamorous approval –

the Agora, the Theatre, and the Laurels.

How can Artaxerxes give you these,

where will you find these in the satrapy,

and what life will you lead without them?

N° 25 THE CITY mp3 (789Kb)

Another city will turn up, a better one than this.

My efforts – each is judged and damned beforehand,

and my heart is buried like a dead man.

And my mind, how long can it stay to rot in this morass?

Anywhere I turn my eye, anywhere I look,

the black ruins of my life are what I see here,

where I have spent so many years, where

I have botched and spoiled so many.”

You will not find a new place, you will not  find some other sea.

The city will follow you. All roads you walk

will be these  roads. And you will age in these same neighbourhoods,

and in these same houses you will go grey.

Always you will end up in this city. For you

there is no boat – abandon hope of that – no road to other things.

The way you’ve botched your life here, in this small corner,

makes for your ruin everywhere on earth.

N° 28   THE GOD FORSAKES ANTHONY mp3 (1200Kb)

Suddenly, at midnight, when an invisible   troupe

is heard passing, with exquisite players, with   voices –

do not lament your luck,

now utterly exhausted,

your acts that failed,

your life’s projects, all ended in delusion.

Like a man who’s all along been ready,

like a man made bold by it,

say your last farewell to her,

to Alexandria, who is leaving.

First, foremost, do not fool yourself,

and say it was a dream, or that your ears were   tricked:

do not stoop to that kind of vacant hope.

Like a man who’s all along been ready,

like a man made bold by it,

in a way fitting the dignity that made you  worthy

of such a city, approach the window steadily,

and listen, moved, but not needy

and disgruntled, like a coward,

listen, taking your final pleasure,

to the sounds, to that mystic troupe’s rare  playing,

and say your last farewell to her,

to that Alexandria you are losing.

Recorded at Krege Auditorium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

9 May 1998

Steinway Piano

Recording, Digital Editing & CD Mastering: Antonio Oliart Ros

Microphones: B&K 4006; Microphone Preamplifiers: Benchmark

A/D Converters: Troisi Design 24-bit; Noise-shaping: SBM II

Typesetting: Carolyn Meehan

Program notes: Marek Zebrowski

Text Editors: Ray Gilvan, Raphael Kreutzer, Pierrette Mathieu

Translations: Raphael Kreutzer, Hervé Léger, Marek Zebrowski

Translations of poems by Constantine P. Cavafy © 1997

Theoharis C. Theoharis

Executive Producer: Charles G. Thomas

Photo Credits:

Cover: Studio Maze

Chris Pedro Trakas: Ira Fox / New York City

Marek Zebrowski: A. Z. Szydlo / London, England

© 1999 New Estis-Terrace, Inc.

® 1999 New Estis-Terrace, Inc.

Titanic and Titanic Records are trademarks of New Estis-Terrace, Inc.

Titanic Records is a division of New Estis-Terrace, Inc.

http://www.titanicrecords.com

Laurence D. Berman, The Bogliasco Foundation, Patrick Forrett,

Edward Gollin, Charles Jonscher, Gilbert Leung, Edward Plotkin,

Joanna Soltan, Alexandra Somers, Theo Theoharis,

Chris Pedro Trakas