Papadakis memorial concert at Drexel

It's a year now since Drexel's 13th president, Constantine Papadakis, passed away at the untimely age of 63. Walking to work under the booms of the Integrated Sciences Building that will bear his name, I wonder whether Taki, as he was familiarly known to all, will drop a load of bricks on me yet.

He and I did do a bit of sparring on this and that, and let me simply say that his idea of higher education and mine were diametrically opposed. But Taki was a force of nature, and his mark will long be felt not only on Drexel but also on Philadelphia itself.

Drexel has a new president now, and the first anniversary of Taki's death was commemorated rather quietly by a recital performed by his fellow Cretan and namesake, Konstantinos Papadakis, who is the Samuel Barber Artist in Residence at West Chester University. Few university dignitaries were in attendance (here yesterday, gone today), but Taki's daughter Maria gave a heartfelt eulogy, as did George Tstsekos, dean of Drexel's Business School.

I don't know which kind of music Taki preferred, but Mr. Papadakis chose to honor his anniversary with works by Frederic Chopin and Samuel Barber, whose bicentennial and centennial birth anniversaries occur this year, respectively. Both of these latter have been copiously observed this year, but not on the same program.

A few things in common

Chopin, of course, is all about the piano, while Barber wrote relatively little for it. Yet Papadakis made a good case for considering both composers together in a relatively brief but carefully constructed program that consisted of Chopin's two Op. 27 Nocturnes and the Second Piano Sonata, followed by Barber's Nocturne, Op. 33, and the Op. 26 Piano Sonata.

It's easy to forget how much muscle there is in both men's music, but the abrupt chord that marks the transition from the middle section of the first Chopin Nocturne is still startling in its power and dissonance, while the blur of notes that constitutes the finale of Chopin's Second Sonata— one could hardly find anything resembling a theme in it— is strikingly modern.

Horowitz insisted

Barber's brief Nocturne is a study "after John Field," the inventor of the Nocturne and Chopin's precursor, while Barber's Sonata clearly takes the Chopin Second for a model, with its funereal slow movement and whirlwind finale.

The latter, it must be said, was not Barber's original intention; he had followed his Adagio mesto with another and reportedly even more lugubrious slow movement, but Vladimir Horowitz, who had commissioned the work, insisted on a virtuoso ending. He got it in spades, including a four-voiced fugue and a snatch of jazz, but whether it's actually a more modern piece than the Chopin finale is a question. However that may be, Papadakis showed the two works clearly in dialogue with each other. With both a sensitive tone and formidable technique, he is a first-rate musician, and his program combined artistry and pedagogy in thoroughly satisfying fashion. The grace note of a Greek dance was left for an encore.

In a memorial, less is often more. Taki Papadakis was a large enough figure and needs no embellishment. It was well enough that the bigwigs absented themselves. The music spoke for the occasion, and spoke well.