Panayiotis Terzakis singing "My Black Swallow"

We heard Panayiotis Terzakis and Maria Georgakarakou on Saturday night, in their concert, "Graecia Magna: Byzantine Hymns, Laments and Historical Songs from Early Modern Greece".

It could have been sleep-inducing -- the repetition of the minor keys, the melancholy of the poetry and the sounds -- but it was not. We loved it. The dark Taxiarchae church was the right setting. His voice is a little bigger than it was last year. Hers gets better after she warms up. There's a harsh edge to it early on. I like the wild yelps and inflections she gives the folk songs.

One song, "Mavro mou khelithoni -- My black swallow" was a small miniature of the whole concert. Here are the last few lines (taken from the program), about a man who wants to write a letter home:

They forced me to marry here in Armenia,
To an Aemenian girl, the daughter of a witch.
She put a spell on the ships, and they do not sail.
She put a spell on the sea, and it does not swell.
She put a spell on the rivers, and they do not flow.
She put a spell on me, and I do not come home.