Mikis Theodorakis


Michael "Mikis" Theodorakis is a Greek composer and lyricist who has contributed to contemporary Greek music with over 1000 works.
He scored for the films Zorba the Greek, Z, and Serpico. He composed the "Mauthausen Trilogy", also known as "The Ballad of Mauthausen", which has been described as the "most beautiful musical work ever written about the Holocaust" and possibly his best work. He is viewed as Greece's best-known living composer. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.
Politically, he is associated with the left because of his long-standing ties to the Communist Party of Greece. He was an MP for the KKE from 1981-90. Nevertheless, in 1989 he ran as an independent candidate within the centre-right New Democracy party, in order for the country to emerge from the political crisis that had been created due to the numerous scandals of the government of Andreas Papandreou, and helped establish a large coalition between conservatives, socialists and leftists. In 1990 he was elected to the parliament, became a government minister under Constantine Mitsotakis, and fought against drugs and terrorism and for culture, education and better relations between Greece and Turkey. He continued to speak out in favor of left-liberal causes, Greek–Turkish–Cypriot relations, and against the War in Iraq. He has consistently opposed oppressive regimes and was a key voice against the 1967–74 Greek junta, which imprisoned him and banned his songs.

Biography

Early years

Mikis Theodorakis was born on the Greek island of Chios and spent his childhood years in different provincial Greek cities such as Mytilene, Cephallonia, Patras, Pyrgos, and Tripoli. His father, a lawyer and a civil servant, was from the small village of Kato Galatas on Crete and his mother, Aspasia Poulakis, was from an ethnically Greek family in Çeşme, in what is today Turkey. He was raised with Greek folk music and was influenced by Byzantine liturgy; as a child he had already talked about becoming a composer.
His fascination with music began in early childhood; he taught himself to write his first songs without access to musical instruments. He took his first music lessons in Patras and Pyrgos, where he was a childhood friend of George Pavlopoulos, and in Tripoli, Peloponnese, he gave his first concert at the age of seventeen. He went to Athens in 1943, and became a member of a Reserve Unit of ELAS, and led a troop in the fight against the British and the Greek right in the Dekemvriana. During the Greek Civil War he was arrested, sent into exile on the island of Icaria and then deported to the island of Makronisos, where he was tortured and twice buried alive.
During the periods when he was not obliged to hide, not exiled or jailed, he studied from 1943 to 1950 at the Athens Conservatoire under Filoktitis Economidis. In 1950, he finished his studies and took his last two exams "with flying colours". He went to Crete, where he became the "head of the Chania Music School" and founded his first orchestra. At this time he ended what he has called the first period of his musical writing.

Studies in Paris

In 1954 he travelled with his young wife Myrto Altinoglou to Paris where he entered the Conservatory and studied musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen and conducting under Eugene Bigot. His time in Paris, 1954–1959, was his second period of musical writing.
His symphonic works: a Piano concerto, his first suite, his first symphony, and his scores for the ballet: Greek Carnival, Le Feu aux Poudres, Les Amants de Teruel, received international acclaim. In 1957, he won the Gold Medal in the Moscow Music Festival; President of the Jury was Dmitri Shostakovitch. In 1959, after the successful performances of Theodorakis's ballet Antigone at Covent Garden in London, the French composer Darius Milhaud proposed him for the American Copley Music Prize - an award of the "William and Noma Copley Foundation", which later changed its name to "Cassandra Foundation" - as the "Best European Composer of the Year". His first international scores for the film Ill Met by Moonlight and Luna de Miel, directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, were also very successful: The Honeymoon title song became part of the repertoire of The Beatles.

Notable works up to 1960

  1. Chamber Music: Four String Quartets; Trio four piano, violin, cello; Little Suite for piano; Sonatina for piano; Sonatinas No.1 and No.2 for violin and piano;
  2. Symphonic music: Assi-Gonia ; Suites n° 1, 2 et 3 for orchestre; La Vie et la Mort / Live and Death ; Œdipus Tyrannos ; Piano Concerto;
  3. Ballets: Greek Carnival; Le Feu aux Poudres; Les Amants de Teruel; Antigone;
  4. Filmscores: The Barefoot Battalion ; Ill Met by Moonlight and Honeymoon ; Faces in the Dark.

    Back to Greek roots

In 1960, Theodorakis returned to Greece and his roots in genuine Greek music: With his song cycle Epitaphios he started the third period of his composing and contributed to a cultural revolution in his country. His most significant and influential works are based on Greek and world poetry – Epiphania, Little Kyklades, Axion Esti, Mauthausen, Romiossini, and Romancero Gitano – he attempted to give back to Greek music a dignity which in his perception it had lost. He developed his concept of "metasymphonic music".
He founded the Little Orchestra of Athens and the Musical Society of Piraeus, gave many, many concerts all around Greece and abroad... and he naturally became involved in the politics of his home country. After the assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis in May 1963 he founded the Lambrakis Democratic Youth and was elected its president. Under Theodorakis's impetus, it started a vast cultural renaissance movement and became the greatest political organisation in Greece with more than 50.000 members. Following the 1964 elections, Theodorakis became a member of the Greek Parliament, associated with the left-wing party EDA. Because of his political ideas, the composer was black-listed by the cultural establishment; at the time of his biggest artistic glory, a large number of his songs were censored-before-studio or were not allowed on the radio stations.
During 1964, he wrote the music for the Michael Cacoyiannis film Zorba the Greek, whose main theme, since then, exists as a trademark for Greece. It is also known as 'Syrtaki dance'; inspired from old Cretan traditional dances.

Main works of this period

  1. Song cycles: Epitaphios ; Archipelagos, Politia A & B, Epiphania, Mikres Kyklades, Chrysoprasino Fyllo, Mauthausen, Romiossini, Thalassina Feggaria
  2. Oratorio: To Axion Esti, cf. Theodorakis on Axion Esti
  3. Music for the Stage: The Hostage ; Ballad of the Dead Brother ; Omorphi Poli ; Maghiki Poli ; I Gitonia ton Angelon
  4. Film scores: Phaedra, The Lovers of Teruel, Five Miles to Midnight, Electra and Zorba the Greek, To Nisi tis Afroditis
  5. The "Mauthausen Trilogy" also known as "The Ballad of Mauthausen", a series of songs with lyrics based on poems written by Greek poet Iakovos Kambanellis. It has been described as the "most beautiful musical work ever written about the Holocaust" and as "an exquisite, haunting and passionate melody that moves Kambanellis' affecting words to an even higher level". It has also been described as possibly Theodorakis's best work.

    During the dictatorship

On 21 April 1967 a right wing junta took power in a putsch. Theodorakis went underground and founded the "Patriotic Front". On 1 June, the Colonels published "Army decree No 13", which banned playing, and even listening to his music. Theodorakis himself was arrested on 21 August, and jailed for five months. Following his release end of January 1968, he was banished in August to Zatouna with his wife Myrto and their two children, Margarita and Yorgos. Later he was interned in the concentration camp of Oropos.
An international solidarity movement, headed by such personalities as Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller, and Harry Belafonte demanded to get Theodorakis freed. On request of the French politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Theodorakis was allowed to go into exile to Paris on 13 April 1970. Theodorakis's flight left very secretly from an Onassis owned private airport outside Athens. Theodorakis arrived at Le Bourget Airport where he met Costa Gavras, Melina Mercouri and Jules Dassin. Theodorakis was immediately hospitalized because he suffered from lung tuberculosis.
Myrto Theodorakis, Mikis's wife and two children joined him a week later in France. They arrived from Greece to France via Italy on a boat.

Main works under the dictatorship

  1. Song cycles: Ta Laïka ; O Ilios ke o Chronos ; Songs for Andreas ; Arcadies I-X; Nichta Thanatou ;
  2. Oratorios: Ephiphania Averoff Giorgos Seferis, State of Siege, March of the Spirit, Raven ;
  3. Film score: Z.

    Resistance in exile

While in exile, Theodorakis fought during four years for the overthrow of the colonels. He started his world tours and gave thousands of concerts on all continents as part of his struggle for the restoration of democracy in Greece.
He met Pablo Neruda and Salvador Allende and promised them to compose his version of Neruda's Canto General. He was received by Gamal Abdel Nasser and Tito, Yigal Allon and Yasser Arafat, while François Mitterrand, Olof Palme and Willy Brandt became his friends. For millions of people, Theodorakis was the symbol of resistance against the Greek dictatorship.

Main works written in exile

  1. Song cycles: 18 lianotragouda tis pikris patridas, Ballades, Tis exorias
  2. Oratorio: Canto General, Sections 3 to 6 only
  3. Film scores: The Trojan Women ; State of Siege ; Serpico

    Return to Greece

After the fall of the Colonels, Mikis Theodorakis returned to Greece on 24 July 1974 to continue his work and his concert tours, both in Greece and abroad. At the same time he participated in public affairs. In 1978, through his article For a United Left Wing, he had "stirred up the Greek political life. His proposal for the unification of the three parties of the former United Left – which had grown out of the National Liberation Front – had been accepted by the Greek Communist Party which later proposed him as the candidate for mayor of Athens during the 1978 elections." He was later elected several times to the Greek Parliament and for two years, from 1990 to 1992, he was a minister in the government of Constantine Mitsotakis. After his resignation as a member of Greek parliament, he was appointed General Musical Director of the Choir and the two Orchestras of the Hellenic State Radio, which he reorganised and with which he undertook successful concert tours abroad.
He was committed to raise international awareness of human rights, of environmental issues and of the need for peace and, for this reason, he initiated, along with the Turkish author, musician, singer, and filmmaker Zülfü Livaneli the Greek–Turkish Friendship Society.
From 1981, Theodorakis had started the fourth period of his musical writing, during which he returned to the symphonic music, while still going on to compose song-cycles. His most significant works written in these years are his Second, Third, Fourth and Seventh Symphony, most of them being first performed in the former German Democratic Republic between 1982 and 1989. It was during this period that he received the Lenin Peace Prize. He composed his first opera Kostas Kariotakis and the ballet Zorba the Greek, premièred in the Arena of Verona during the Festival Verona 1988. During this period, he also wrote the five volumes of his autobiography: The Ways of the Archangel.
In 1989, he started the fifth period, the last, of his musical writing: He composed three operas Medea, first performed in Bilbao, Elektra, first performed in Luxembourg and Antigone, first performed in Athens' Megaron Moussikis. This trilogy was complemented by his last opera Lysistrata, first performed in Athens : a call for peace... With his operas, and with his song cycles from 1974 to 2006, Theodorakis ushered in the period of his Lyrical Life.
For a period of 10 years, Alexia Vassiliou teamed up with Mikis Theodorakis and his Popular Orchestra. During that time, and as a tribute to Theodorakis’s body of work, Vassiliou recorded a double album showcasing some of the composer’s most consummate musical creations, and in 1998, Sony BMG released the album entitled Alexia–Mikis Theodorakis.
Theodorakis is Doctor honoris causa of several universities, including Montreal, Thessaloniki, and Crete.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou
Now he lives in retirement, reading, writing, publishing arrangements of his scores, texts about culture and politics. On occasions he still takes position: in 1999, opposing NATO's Kosovo war and in 2003 against the Iraq War. In 2005, he was awarded the Sorano Friendship and Peace Award, the Russian International St.-Andrew-the-First-Called Prize, the insignia of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of Luxembourg, and the IMC UNESCO International Music Prize, while already in 2002 he was honoured in Bonn with the Erich Wolfgang Korngold Prize for film music at the International Film Music Biennial in Bonn. In 2007, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the distribution of the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent.
A final set of songs entitled: Odysseia was composed by utilizing poetry written by Costas Kartelias for lyrics. In 2009 he composed a Rhapsody for Strings. Created on 30 January 2013, Theodorakis achieved the distinction of producing one of the largest works by any composer of any time.
On February 26, 2019, Theodorakis was hospitalized due to heart problems. On March 8, 2019, Theodorakis underwent surgery to place a pacemaker at an undisclosed Athens hospital.

Main works after 1974

  1. Song cycles: Ta Lyrika; Dionysos; Phaedra; Beatrice in Zero Street; Radar; Chairetismoi ; Mia Thalassa ; Os archaios Anemos ; Lyrikotera ; Lyrikotata ; Erimia ; Odysseia;
  2. Music for the Stage: Orestia ; Antigone ; Medea
  3. Film scores: Iphigenia, The Man with the Carnation
  4. Oratorio: Canto General in 13 Sections, completed in 1981
  5. Oratorios: Liturgia 2; Missa Greca ; Requiem;
  6. Symphonic music and cantatas: Symphonies no 2, 3, 4, 7; According to the Sadducees; Canto Olympico; Guitar Rhapsody; Cello Rhapsody; Trumpet Rhapsody ; Rhysody for Strings
  7. Operas: "The Metamorphosis of the Dionysus" ; Medea; Elektra; Antigone; Lysistrata.

    Political views

Theodorakis has spoken out against the Iraq war and Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. He condemned Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou for establishing closer relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was guilty, he said, of "war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza." Theodorakis is also a vocal critic of Zionism, and refers to himself as an “anti-Zionist.” Like many Greeks, Theodorakis greatly opposed the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Yugoslav Wars. He participated in a charity concert protesting the bombing in 1999.

Views of the United States

Theodorakis Is a long-time critic of the United States. During the invasion of Iraq, he called Americans "detestable, ruthless cowards and murderers of the people of the world". He said he would consider anyone who interacted with "these barbarians" for whatever reason as his enemy.

2010–2011: Non-political movement

On 1 December 2010 Mikis Theodorakis founded "Spitha: People's Independent Movement", a non-political movement which calls people to gather and express their political ideas. The main goal of "Spitha" is to help Greece stay clear of its economic crisis. On 31 May Mikis Theodorakis gave a speech attended by approximately 10,000 people in the center of Athens, criticising the Greek government for the loan debt it has taken from the International Monetary Fund.

Work

His song cycles are based on poems by Greek authors, as well as by García Lorca and Neruda: Epitaphios, Archipelagos, Politia A-D, Epiphania, The Hostage, Mykres Kyklades, Mauthausen, Romiossini, Sun and Time, Songs for Andreas, Mythology, Night of Death, Ta Lyrika, The Quarters of the World, Dionysos, Phaedra, Mia Thalassa, Os Archaios Anemos, Ta Lyrikotera, Ta Lyrikotata, Erimia, Odysseia.
Theodorakis released two albums of his songs and song cycles on Paredon Records and Folkways Records in the early seventies, including his Peoples' Music: The Struggles of the Greek People.

Symphonic works

Classical tragedies

Andreas Kapsokavadis born 1994 December 16 aka Kaps
Reference: Guy Wagner. Chairman of the International Theodorakis Foundation FILIKI.
List of works based on the research of Asteris Koutoulas, published in O Mousikos Theodorakis.

Scores

Books in Greek by Theodorakis