“I Think It’s Time We Listened”: The Music of 20th-Century Greece

Friendship, collaboration, and a way of function formed the tradition of Twentieth-century Greece. A quest for Greekness within the wake of the Asia Minor Disaster impressed a artistic interchange all through the humanities, whereas uniting custom with up to date currents. Music introduced every thing collectively – poetry, theater, dance, portray. From folks songs to the symphonies of Mitropoulos, and from the rebetiko of Vamvakaris to Xenakis’ avant-garde compositions, Twentieth-century Greek music had a unprecedented vary.

The story takes form at the exhibition “It’s Time We Listened,” curated by Erato Koutsoudaki for the Institute of Greek Music Heritage. The Ghika Gallery of the Benaki Museum makes an excellent setting; this complete overview of Twentieth-century Greek tradition introduces almost 200 creators spanning all the humanities, from the interwar period to the dictatorship.

The exhibition highlights the 11 composers already in residence on the Ghika Gallery, every represented with a video show in a inexperienced stand. “Along with sharing their music, we hoped to provide a way of who the composer was as an individual – their voice, gestures, and persona. We generally share recordings from the period during which the items had been written, however we’ve additionally used up to date interpretations, like Vamvakaris’ Frangosyriani by Locomondo; some items run deep in our veins. The connections among the many composers and in addition with poets, painters, and creators within the dramatic arts can be key to the bigger story.”

You’ll see inexperienced dots on the ground with observations within the composers’ personal phrases. These reveal stunning connections and influences. “The customer has the liberty to attach the story in an unrestricted, private means,” says Koutsoudaki. Utilizing an app to scan the faces of creators (marked inexperienced), for instance the choreographer Manou (of the Helliniko Choreodrama) or the poet Ritsos, we study extra: tales, songs, or associated video content material, akin to watching the nice painter Tsarouchis – dedicated to rebetiko – being invited by Tsitsanis to bop the zebeikiko on stage at “Charama.” 

Classical Composers

The bottom ground show devoted to Mitropoulos serves as the inspiration for the exhibition. He was a basic determine, a decade older than many, and three a long time older than Theodorakis and Hadjidakis. He was additionally a longtime member of the worldwide classical scene, not solely as a composer but additionally as conductor of the New York Philharmonic. In a letter marked by deference, Theodorakis – so younger he’s not even “Mikis” but (he indicators it “Mihail”) – describes his imaginative and prescient to Mitropoulos. Mitropoulos reveals an identical deference when writing to the poet Constantine Cavafy in regards to the interpretation of his poem “I went” in Mitropoulos’ 1926 work 14 Invenzioni for Voice and Piano.

The Greek Avant-Garde on the Worldwide Scene

Within the presentation on Sicilianos, we learn a letter written about him: “The boy certainly has super potentialities and may be very promising!” It’s from Mitropoulos, who debuted Sicilianos’ Symphony 1 opus 14 with the NY Philharmonic in 1958. Sicilianos would later compose utilizing serial strategies and the twelve-tone system.

Close to Sicilianos, we encounter three different main figures; his shut contemporaries and pals Hadjidakis and Theodorakis, and the internationally acknowledged Yannis Xenakis, who serves as a connection to the worldwide avant-garde. He studied with Olivier Messiaen and labored as an architect with Le Corbusier, with arithmetic and physics serving as his foundations. The music is extraordinary however would appear to inhabit a completely unrelated cultural sphere. But one of the stunning quotes within the present is by Hadjidakis on Xenakis:

“Xenakis went as far as to ignore a music custom spanning 5 hundred years – in different phrases, he disregarded all music from the Renaissance onwards – and he adopted a brand new stance with all of the vigor of a genuinely Greek spirit… Nothing in Xenakis’ music is mud; as an alternative, there may be dwell substance, springing from a profoundly mathematical mind-set and marked with the open-mindedness of a poet…. Xenakis is immensely important; for it’s the first time that such a daring determine has appeared in worldwide music creation that has determined to re-exist as a Greek.” 

Rebetiko Takes the Stage

What makes Hadjidakis’ remarks on Xenakis extra fascinating nonetheless is Hadjidakis’ connection to rebetiko, the style of the city working class with its roots in Asia Minor:

 “...What the nation wanted at that time was to embrace the common-or-garden, versus the obsession with the Nice Concept prevalent on the time. Pikionis paved the way in which to the Acropolis stone by stone. We found Karagiozis, and I, pushed by the identical want, found rebetiko.” 

It’s stunning connections like these, taking us from the world of Vamvakaris and Tsitsanis to Xenakis in a single step, that make the exhibition so gratifying.

Koutsoudaki locations the importance of Hadjidakis’ dedication to rebetiko in a broader cultural context: “When he was simply 24, and the nation was within the turmoil of Civil struggle, Hadjidakis addressed an viewers on the Theatro Technis in protection of rebetiko, calling it a “genuinely and uniquely Greek artwork” and alluring to the stage Vamvakaris and Sotiria Bellou. It’s exhausting for us now to think about how marginalized rebetiko as soon as was; through Skalkottas and Hadjidakis, rebetiko grew to become one way or the other legitimized, a part of up to date, middle-class, city tradition.”

Though it was not with out its detractors….

Tsitsanis’ bio within the Ghika Gallery relates that, whereas he was censored through the right-leaning Metaxas regime, he additionally confronted the “abhorrence of the left for rebetiko” on the similar time. This was the case for different rebetiko composers and musicians too. At the moment, rebetiko is a well-liked style with the left, not least due to its origin in a marginalized working class. However through the Civil struggle and its aftermath, passions ran excessive. Koutsoudaki gives perspective: “The issue was the affiliation of rebetiko with cannabis; devoted leftists felt it dulled revolutionary fervor.” 

We are able to see this within the show on Alekos Xenos, which features a newspaper interview entitled “I accuse Rebetiko.” A quote illustrates his leftist ideology:

“After the discussions in regards to the artwork of music with Lavrongas and in a while with Varvoglis, Kalomiris, Mitropoulos, and Skalkottas, I used to be satisfied that, underneath the circumstances, with the intention to talk with the individuals we wanted an artwork which might be nationwide in kind in addition to progressive and socialist in content material.”

The Poets in Tune

Works by the buddies Hadjidakis and Theodorakis (“a beast of creativity” exclaims Koutsoudaki) are acquainted to Greeks and guests alike. “With most of those guys, however particularly Theodorakis and Hadjidakis, we have now a possessiveness; we see them as one way or the other ‘ours’.” The connection of Greeks to their poets is equally shut. Each composers created interpretations of Ritsos’ work “Epitaphios”; we hear them on the app. Poetry was the cornerstone of inspiration for Theodorakis:

“My greatest ambition is to faithfully serve fashionable Greek poetry. A lot in order that while you take heed to a music you gained’t be capable to think about (that) music overlaying a unique poem, nor the poem set to a unique music.”

Theodorakis set a number of different seminal poems to music, together with Seferis’ Denial (prompting Seferis to exclaim: “The semicolon! The semicolon! Otherwise you change what I imply.”) and Elytis’ Axion Esti.

Ritsos’ Woman within the Moonlight was made right into a music by Sicilianos, whereas works by Cavafy, in addition to inspiring Mitropoulos’ 14 Invenzioni, additionally impressed Hadjidakis (Magnus Erotas from “Days of 1903”), Theodorakis (The God Abandons Antony), and Papaioannou (The Funeral of Sarpedon). We are able to hear them on the app beside the portrait of Cavafy (sketched by Tetsis). We additionally hear Raining within the Poor Neighborhood, composed by Theodorakis with phrases by the poet Tassos Leivaditis (co-writer of the movie A Neighborhood Named the Dream, during which the music seems), and poet Nikos Gatsos’ Kemal, whose model by Hadjidakis might be acquainted to many.

The (Extraordinarily Radical) Birds

A particular show is devoted to The Birds. In 1959, the director Karolos Koun staged a revolutionary manufacturing of Aristophanes’ play on the Herodes Atticus Theater. Hadjidakis composed the music, Tsarouchis designed the costumes, and Manou ready the refrain. Koun’s interpretation redefined the refrain’ position, making it the protagonist. 

The efficiency induced an uproar: “In addition to the paper costumes by Tsarouchis, which started to disintegrate on the new August night time, this was the true objection,” explains Koutsoudaki, “the revolutionary transformation of the collective – the numerous – which had been perceived as important sufficient to be the true protagonist.” An adjoining cartoon depicts Koun and the Minister of Public Administration, Konstantinos Tsatsos, who was so incensed that he tried to have the efficiency canceled within the center (he managed to cancel it the following day). This interpretation of The Birds stays a milestone, carried out many instances. The app features a video.

Theodorakis on Display screen

In 1963, Belgian TV produced “Mikis Theodorakis and Greek Well-liked Music,” a part of a sequence of documentaries, every hosted by a significant cultural determine. “He was at his top now; for his symphonic music internationally, and in Greece for his well-liked music,” says Koutsoudaki. He presents the work of Hadjidakis, Vamvakaris, and Tsitsanis, and in addition of Dora Stratou and her dance theater, narrating from the Temple of Hephaestus within the Agora as his daughter Margarita runs among the many wildflowers. 

48 minutes with Stavros Xarchakos

“For a lot of Greeks, Xarchakos is a part of a trinity alongside Hadjidakis and Theodorakis.”  Koutsoudaki filmed Xarchakos – a hyperlink to the world of the exhibition and a working composer and performer nonetheless from his dwelling and studio for the exhibition. Among the many moments he relates are when Tsarouchis met him on the street to make a portray of the home he grew up (it was to be torn down, and Tsarouchis liked neoclassical homes), attending to know Melina Mercouri (his mom’s childhood buddy), and his encounters with Leonard Bernstein and David Diamond. He shares the room we see on a panoramic display with album covers (together with Tsarouchis’ portray of his home), correspondence, and different displays he lent for this set up.

The Take-Away

Why the title? For one factor, it’s true; it’s undoubtedly time we listened. The title is The Present is Greek, a guide by Menis Koumoundareas; he recollects how the hostess Eleni Ourani invited Mitropoulos to the piano with the phrases “I feel it’s time we listened…”. 

That is an illuminating introduction to the music of 20th-century Greece in its span of genres, from rebetiko and folks music to the adoption of the experimental buildings of the avant-garde, akin to serialism and the twelve-tone system. We see the composers’ dedication to Greek tradition as an entire by the robust connection to poetry, and the frequent collaborations with advantageous artists (such because the influential cowl Moralis did for “Six Folks Drawings”) and the dramatic arts. We additionally see Greek music in a world context – Mitropoulos in New York, Xenakis in Paris with Messaien, Skalkottas in Berlin with Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg, Sicilianos within the USA with Darius Milhaud. 

Most of all, the exhibition attracts us nearer to the story. It strengthens our affection for our personal favorites as we get to know them higher, whereas introducing us to composers we would not have recognized so nicely however might now develop to like.