Dimitri Platanias & String Quartet Aenaon

Alternative Stage Founding Donor

Major Sponsor of the Greek National Opera

The leading Greek baritone, Dimitri Platanias, collaborates with the active Aenaon string quartet, composed of prominent musicians from the Athens State Orchestra, for a special concert, in which the human voice engages with the deep expressiveness of the strings in works of intense lyricism, contemplation, and emotional intensity.

From Arnold Schoenberg to Ottorino Respighi and Othmar Schoeck, many 20th-century composers turned their focus on the special combination of voice and string quartet to convey pain, loneliness, and existential anguish. A typical example of this is Samuel Barber's Dover Beach (1931), based on Matthew Arnold’s poem of the same name, which fascinatingly captures the poem's inner turmoil and sadness, as the voice interacts with the strings in an absolutely balanced and expressive manner.

The genre has evolved into a versatile tool for musical storytelling, encompassing a wide range of emotions, from the darkest ecstasy of the aforementioned works to the bright and outward-looking treatment of traditional tunes by newer composers such as Peter Warlock and Vivian Fine. Today, it remains a vibrant and creative field for contemporary composers, including Mark-Anthony Turnage, Aribert Reimann, and Kaija Saariaho, with inexhaustible potential.