Nana Mouskouri - Voice Of Greece

Three CD box set. The extraordinary Nana Mouskouri vies with Madonna as the most popular female singer of all time. In a career spanning six decades she has sold 350 million records, sung in fifteen different languages. At first, Nana captivated audiences in the tavernas and nightclubs of Athens. Her early recordings were made under the auspices of the two most important post-war Greek composers, Manos Hadjidakis and Mikos Theodorakis, the former collaborating with the poet Nikos Gatsos in the creation of some of these compositions. Nana recorded for the local Fidelity label and while in 1958 'Hartino To Fengaraki' (The Paper Moon) proved a domestic hit, it was the success of 'Ta Pedia Tou Pirea' (The Children of Piraeus), the themesong of Jules Dassin's movie, Never On Sunday, that heralded the breakthrough. Nominated for five Academy awards, the film won the Oscar for Best Original Song, sparking unprecedented interest in Greek music and culture that helped propel Nana onto the world stage. The Voice of Greece is a 3 CD box set presentation that concentrates exclusively on recordings made in Nana's formative years in Greece. A quantity of rare single A & B sides complement Hadjidakis' breezy, eclectic score for the German film production, Greece, 'Dreamland Of Desire' (Hellas i chora ton oniron), alongside selections from his "prayer-offering" to modern Greece, Lilacs Out Of The Dead Land. Also featured is the Song cycle Epitaphios - the poet Yannis Ritsos' lament inspired by the death of a Thessaloniki tobacco-factory worker during a strike - set to music by Mikis Theodorakis and orchestrated by Hadjidakis. Profoundly moving, the Epitaphios sessions stand as some of the finest work of Nana's long career.