Subways Music / Eratio Odeon in collaboration with the Greek Composers Union and its magazine "Polytonon" created "Hellanion", the first oiginal album to be released free, before having first been circulated via record shops. "Hellanion" is offered for free together with issue #13 of "Polytonon". In this, their second CD, Soloists Stella Tsani and Elena Chounta manage to fulfil their dream of making an album that covers, as far as possible, the musical moods of 20th c. Greek scholarly music. Tendencies of the first half of the 20th c. are represented by the two main Greek composers of the period, Nikos Skalkottas (with his unique and demanding "Solo Violin Sonata") and Manolis Kalomiris, (with his masterpiece "Sonata for Violin and Piano") who lived parallel lives, but followed completely different musical routes. The former adopted the new musical trends of Central Europe, creating his own personal style, whereas the latter became the most important founder of the Greek National School, incorporating impressionistic and post-romantic elements. Theodore Antoniou (to whose 70th birthday this CD is dedicated) is the person who, with his multi-talented creativity (as a conductor, composer, tutor and president of the GCU) and his international fame influenced all the big changes which took part in the second half of the 20th c. and is the artist who stands right between the old and new generation of composers. His wonderfully youthful "Sonatina for Violin and Piano" proves exactly that. The new generation of composers is represented by two exceptionally creative and renowned members of the GCU, Iakovos Konitopoulos, whose activities mainly involve conducting, and Leonidas Kanaris, who is also known for his solo career as a guitarist. The colourful "Eroticon" of the former was picked for "Hellanion" as it expresses the more contemporary musical trends, whereas the atmospheric "Breakup Scene" of the latter represents the neoromantic-neotonic trends, as well as programmed music. Stella Tsani and Elena Chounta dedicated themselves to finding the ideal performing style for each composer's work and worked closely with the living composers (Antoniou, Konitopoulos, Kanaris) both during rehersals and recordings, which resulted in a CD of various different moods, yet with an overall homogenous feel and quality. And an explanation: Hellanion is an ancient Greek word. It means Hellenic (Greek).