Stefanos Nasos

Pianist

He performs as a soloist with orchestras and with colleagues in chamber music works, collaborates with singers, and occasionally gives solo recitals. His repertoire spans from the Baroque era to the present day, and in recent years he has focused on contemporary music, both domestic and international, with dozens of premieres to his credit. His studies led him to various parts of the world, including Japan, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Russia. He returned to Athens in 2009, taking over Nasos Publications and laying the groundwork for further regular collaborations with leading Greek colleagues, such as the Ergon Ensemble and Piandaemonium. From 2012 to 2019, he organized the concert series "To piano sta forte tou" (The piano at its forte). Since 2022, he has been teaching contemporary piano at Musikene, the San Sebastián music academy in Spain. His non-musical interests – often connected to music – include cooking, writing, foreign languages, and travel. He regularly expresses his views on cultural matters online without hesitation.

All posts

23 Contemporary Music Masterpieces for Every Music Lover
January 16, 2026

The Ghost

Stefanos Nasos

Pianist

There are some works that you can fall in love with at first listen. They are few, especially in the last 50-60 years, but they are usually so successful that a second listen simply excites you further, as do subsequent ones where you gradually discover details. This is especially true if there is another approach, another interpretation by a different ensemble, a different orchestra, or soloist. This was not the case when I first heard the Ghost Variations for solo piano in 2001, if I remember correctly, as at that time only Stephen Hough’s recording was available and YouTube did not yet exist. However, now there are many recordings of the work available online and on disc. The Ghost Variations (1991) by the Greek-American George Tsontakis (*1951) constitute, in my opinion, a monumental composition for piano, a work comparable to the great Romantic piano compositions of the 19th century.

A beloved contemporary composer, in the literal sense of the term contemporary, as he is still creating, is the great George Tsontakis. With a distinctive compositional style reminiscent of the neo-Romantic style of many US composers, he will be the focus of this text, also because he will be in Athens in the coming weeks, thanks to his new composition Pianoscuro, which will be premiered on January 25, 2026, by the ensemble Piandaemonium 6 pianos – 12 pianists.

Prolific and multi-award-winning, Tsontakis has been influenced by both Olivier Messiaen and classical composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven. Among the dozens of awards he has received, the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, which he received in 2005 for his Second Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, stands out. This work has been repeatedly performed in Greece by soloists such as Giorgos Demertzis and Antonis Sousamoglou.

His writing is often challenging for instrumentalists, requiring from them, in addition, a particularly good sense of rhythm. The orchestration of his orchestral works is exemplary, following the great American tradition. Besides the aforementioned concerto, the following concertos also stand out: for piano Man of Sorrows (2005), Mirologhia (2001) for percussion, Anasa for clarinet (2011), and the concerto for two violins Unforgettable (2009), which was performed in Athens by the Philharmonia Orchestra of Athens in 2019 with soloists Apollon Grammatikopoulos and Panagiotis Tziotis. I will make special mention here of Man of Sorrows, a magnificent piano concerto in six movements, lasting approximately 40 minutes, with religious references: the Man of Sorrows is Jesus Christ. It was performed by Maria Asteriadou with the State Orchestra of Thessaloniki in 2010, and by me at its European premiere in 2008 with the Athens State Orchestra.

In the –early– four string quartets, you will hear a clear influence from Beethoven, particularly from the great composer’s late period. His works such as the horn trio Dust (1999), the clarinet quartet Eclipse (1996), the horn quartet Gemini (1996), the string and piano quintet Heartsounds (1990), and his three piano quartets have been repeatedly performed in many halls by various ensembles. The influences from Beethoven continue, but those of Messiaen increase, especially in the harmonic background, or even conceptually, e.g., combining Dust with Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time in a concert program. Even newer works such as the two collections Portraits by El Greco (2014 and 2021) for clarinet and piano quartet, presented accompanied by paintings by Domenikos Theotokopoulos, the trio for cello, percussion, and piano Stimulus Package (2009), Gravity Plus for pierrot ensemble* with percussion (2011/16), or the fourth piano quartet (2019) have been performed many times.

The work, however, that is recommended in this text is the Ghost Variations, a three-part composition of approximately half an hour’s duration without interruptions. A large first movement is followed by two scherzi. Contrary to what the title of the work implies, i.e., a variation form, here the term alludes to the transformation of the material. The word “ghost” refers to the world of the spiritual, memory, and dreams. Furthermore, there is a small set of variations on a Mozart theme, the main theme from the third movement of the Piano Concerto in E-flat major, KV 482. As a genuine Beethovenian composer, Tsontakis treats it dynamically and transforms it into something new. Thus, the title is not entirely misleading.

The first movement of the work is a free fantasy that leads to the aforementioned Mozart variations: the theme – a bolt from the blue the moment we hear it – is followed by six short variations. The preceding fantasy consists of three ideas: a short semi-aleatoric introduction, leading to a motif of triplets in a fanfare style. The third idea, after processing the second, leads to a chorale in the bass register of the piano, accompanied by rhythmic chord motifs in fourths in the higher registers. The ideas alternate until we arrive at the Rococo world of Mozart – as Hough says. The movement concludes with explosive chords in B-flat major (!) in triplets – the motif from the second idea.

“Two scherzi follow, which begin and develop with extraordinary, almost manic, intensity, but end fragmented, in disintegration,” according to Hough. The rhythmic enthusiasm of the movements is barely contained within the limits of the piano. Again, Beethoven’s influence on Tsontakis is evident. The scherzo, which usually has a relieving character after a large and significant or a slow movement, plays a serious role here, as in the late works of the great German master. Although elements of jazz and folk music appear, along with syncopations, the character is restless and anxious, Hough states. This continues in the second scherzo, where we hear an asymmetrical tarantella. Here too, the rhythmic element dominates, with reappearances of earlier elements, ideas, and rhythms. At the very end, there is also a disguised Greek folk element, just before the final disintegration.

Happy listening!

* A pierrot ensemble is a five-member instrumental ensemble consisting of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano, so named because of Arnold Schönberg’s famous work Pierrot Lunaire (1912).