#3: Gabor’s dreamy fruit drifts

Galatea’s Guitar & Xinomavro

Music, wine, words on papyrus (or the digital screen) – they are all expressions of an artist’s vision. Well over 2000 years ago, Ovid was compiling the tales in the Metamorphoses, his magnum opus. One chapter tells the story of Pygmalion, a sculptor who crafts a statue of a woman from ivory, a work of art so exquisite that he falls in love with it. In a generous mood, Aphrodite grants Pygmalion’s wish and bestows life on his creation. Galatea. What a miracle it is to make something. 

Moving onto the 1960s, the story of Galatea would inspire the Hungarian guitarist Gábor Szabó, who channelled the gentle energy of this story into the psychedelic Galatea’s Guitar. Despite the fact that this is a purely instrumental track, it has a distinctly poetic and narrative rhythm – much like Ovid’s magnum opus – with each note from Szabó’s guitar adding a rich brushstroke of colour and texture.

This track, alongside a glass of Xinomavro, is a real pleasure. This is Greece’s most famous black grape, often exhibiting a fruity delicacy that can belie its complexity. I recently enjoyed the 2021 Xinomavro from Apostolos Thymiopoulos, made in the Macedonia region of northeastern Greece. A glass of this – generously filled and lightly chilled – marries beautifully with Szabó’s dreamy guitar drifts. Close your eyes, and you can imagine kicking off your sandals on a warm evening, feeling the sand between your toes. Hearing the sound of the sea lapping the sand. 

As the track opens, the first notes of Szabó’s guitar stir like a twilight daydream. Soft bursts of cranberry and crunchy red berries, with a hint of Mediterranean herbs, as if carried on the breeze from the clifftops. The wine is delicate on its feet, skipping across the sand towards the sea. It’s relaxed, at ease, but that’s not to say it’s frivolous. We’re now standing at the edge of the shore, the notes from the guitar rippling like moonlight on the waves. Picture it: the water, warm and inviting, lapping your legs. Darker piano notes set up the rhythm, a steady pulse like deliberate, measured footsteps into the sea. There is a moment of anticipation, before we finally take the plunge. Now, the full rhythm of the song (and the wine) kicks in, opening up, revealing and pulling us down. 

We dive deeper, between shafts of moonlight and pockets of darkness. It’s those moments of darkness which make the bursts of light even more stunning. The musical texture thickens with each experimental layer added – like those red fruits acquiring greater depth with more time in the glass – until it is almost as if we are swimming through oil. Which is how you might start to feel after drinking a bottle or two of this – deceptively, dangerously drinkable as it is. 

Although Szabó died in 1982, his music still retains the power to conjure these rich, very present worlds. Like Pygmalion’s beloved statue come to life, such is the gift of art.