Astrinidēs [Astrinidis], Nikolaos (original) (raw)

A Fresh Look into Nikos Astrinidēs’s (1921-2010) compositions for wind ensembles

2023

Nikos Astrinidēs (1921-2010) was one of the most important Greek composers of the last century. His compositional style encompasses elements such as Orientalism, Balkan music, the Russian National School, Greek Byzantine and traditional music, Romanticism, French impressionism, etc., in an exceptionally original way. As Director of the Wind Orchestra of the Municipality of Thessaloniki (Greece), he proceeded to compose original works and adapt his own, as well as works of other composers, for wind orchestras. Under his direction, the band developed into a high-profile wind orchestra. His compositions, orchestrations, and arrangements remain virtually unknown. This paper attempts to present them analytically, clarify issues of access and status of the existing documents, and briefly discuss their instrumentation. The ultimate goal is to facilitate researchers and conductors/bandmasters in accessing, researching, performing, and establishing these works as part of the standard repertoire for wind orchestras in Greece and abroad.

Aspar and His Phoideratoi: John Malalas on a Special Relationship

The exceptionally powerful position held by the magister militum praesentalis Aspar in the Eastern Roman Empire under the reign of Leo I (457-474) was due, first and foremost, to a ‘special relationship’ with a considerable group of followers who were, just like him, Arians of barbarian origin. The most important piece of evidence for this matter is the description of Aspar's retinue given by the 6th-century chronicler John Malalas (XIV, 40-41). In his account of Aspar's murder (in 471), this author says that the latter had at his disposal a large number of Goths, many comites (here probably in the sense of ‘commanders of military units’), paides (valets) and paramenontes anthropoi (people in the service of others). Moreover, Aspar is said to have given to his retinue the name of phoideratoi, a loan word derived from the Latin term foederatus (ally). As the verb καλέω (to call) is often used by John Malalas for instances in which a ruler officially gives a name to a city or a province, to an institution, to a building or a monument, or even to a military unit, it follows that, in this author's mind, Aspar gave the name of phoideratoi to his retinue following an official act such as the conclusion of a foedus. Aspar, who was the hero of the expedition initially led by his father Ardabur against the Western usurper John (423-425), may have concluded such a foedus with the Pannonian Goths who, according to a controversial passage in the early 9th-century Chronicle of Theophanes (A.M. 5931), settled in Thrace in the 420s. This article also deals with the use of the Latin term foederatus in early Byzantine Greek.

Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Tales: A Study of the Creation of the “Narrative about Asclepius”

Aelius Aristides' Sacred Tales is a complex literary text, and its first book—the diary—puzzles scholars , as it has no parallel in the entire work. This paper offers a justification for this section by arguing for a deliberate contrast between the diary and Books 2–6 of the Sacred Tales, as a result of which the latter section is crafted as a narrative about Asclepius. I will first identify a large series of shifts in the ST: starting with Book 2, change concerns the protagonist, which from Aristides' abdomen turns to Asclepius, the narrator, dream interpretation, genre, and arrangement of the events. Secondly, I discuss the impact of these shifts upon the readers' response: while the diary invites the readers to relive the everyday tension between known past and unknown future, the spatial form of Books 2–6 creates the opposite effect, turning the readers' attention away from the human flow of time towards Asclepius, and leading them to perceive features of his divine time.