The Politics of Culture: Historical Moments in Greek Musical Modernism
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The Politics of Culture: Historical Moments in Greek Musical Modernism Vol. I Ioannis Tsagkarakis Royal Holloway University of London Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Ion Zottos (Alexandria 1944 – Athens 2010) In Memoriam DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I have read and understood the regulations for Doctoral students as they are described in the Annual Handbook of the Music Department at Royal Holloway University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by another person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another individual has been acknowledged in the present thesis London 2013 Ioannis Tsagkarakis i ABSTRACT This thesis spotlights eleven formative moments or ‘events’ in the history of twentieth-century art music in Greece. They date from 1908 to 1979 and are ordered by two master narratives, the ‘Great Idea’ and the ‘European Idea’, concepts with multifarious implications for the making of contemporary Greece. The nature of the musical works presented during these events, the particular kind of reception they received, the debates they generated, and the role their composers hoped they would play in the construction of a contemporary Greek musical identity are some of the indicative issues that will be discussed, and always in relation to the prevailing political and social context. More specifically, I will try to show by way of these events how politics and culture were inextricably tied together. In some cases the events directly mirrored the political divisions and social tensions of their time, while in others they formed an easy (‘innocent’) prey to political agendas – indigenous and foreign – that were at some remove from matters aesthetic. The discussion of these historical moments in the concert life of Greece is partly based on secondary sources, but it is also supported by extensive archival research. It is hoped that both the general approach and the new findings will enrich and update the existing literature in English, and that they may even serve to stimulate further research in the music history of other countries located in the so-called margins of Europe. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Primarily, I would like to acknowledge gratefully the support of my supervisor Professor Jim Samson whose expertise, utmost patience and enduring support during my academic odyssey added significantly to my graduate experience. I am also grateful to my academic advisor Julian Johnson, Regius Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, and to the other members of the academic staff of the Music Department, notably Dr Rachel Beckles Willson and Dr Julie Brown. Their advice at an early stage of my research made me reconsider most of my initial approach to the topic of my study. I am also indebted to the dedicated archivist at the Kalomiris Archive, Myrto Economides, for her eagerness to provide me with necessary research material, and to Mrs Hara Kalomiris, Director General of the National Conservatory, for her warm welcome to her grandfather’s house in Athens and for allowing me to access some of the material that is still kept there. I must also thank here Dr Eleftheria Daleziou, reference archivist at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, the composers and staff-members of the Contemporary Music Research Center in Athens Costas Mantzoros, Petros Fragistas, the late Michael Adamis (1929-2013) who assisted with my research in Athens, as well as the former cultural attaché of the Ford Foundation Katie Myrivili and the architect and head of the Hourmouziou-Papaioannou Foundation Panagis Psomopoulos who provided me with rare and unrecorded information about the Greek post-war avant-garde music scene. I am also grateful to Professor Katy Romanou, who generously lent me a collection of facsimiles of music reviews during my initial research trips to Athens, Dr Kostas Kardamis, Professor Panos Vlagopoulos, as well as the archivist Maria Aslanidi from the Ionian University. Similarly, I need to recognise the assistance of the archivist at Doxiadis Archives Yota Pavlidou, the staff of the ‘Lilian Voudouri’ Music Library of Greece, the Benakis Historical Archives, the Skalkottas Archive, and the Greek Literary and Historical Archives. iii In various ways I was also occasionally assisted by Dr Sofia Kontossi, Dr Katerina Levidou, Dr Efi Spentzou, Dr Belinda Webb, the composer Philippos Tsalahouris and by some of my dearest friends, notably Dr Maria Sourtzi-Chatzidimitriou and her husband George; Christophoros Liondakis, Jason Triantafilidis, Dr Garry Dearden, Helen Dent Metcalfand, Effie Vetoulaki, Maria Tassopoulou and Philippos Sakelaropoulos. Moreover, I need to express my gratitude to my partner, my brother and my parents for their support throughout this long and adventurous study in the United Kingdom. Finally, I must acknowledge that this thesis would have not been completed without the financial support of Royal Holloway University of London, the Hellenic Ministry of Education, the British Council and the State Scholarship Foundation of Greece (IKY). iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS AIS Allied Information Service ASCA American School of Classical Studies at Athens ATI Athens Technological Institute CEMAMu Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales CMRC Contemporary Music Research Centre – Athens (ΚΣΥΜΕ) DAAD Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst EBF English Bach Festival EC European Community (EU after 1993) ΕΙΡΤ Greek National Broadcasting Corporation EMY European Music Year (1985) ΕΡΓΗΜ Electronic Music Laboratory EΡT Greek Radio Television (acronym that replaced EIΡT after 1975) FFF Ford Foundation Files (Athens) HACM Hellenic Association of Contemporary Music (ΕΣΣΥΜ) HAU Hellenic American Union HGCM Hellenic Group of Contemporary Music HWCM Hellenic Week of Contemporary Music ISCM International Society of Contemporary Music KKE Communist Party of Greece NΔ New Democracy ΕΟΤ Greek Tourism Organisation ORFT Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française ΠΑΜΕ PanHellenic Anti-dictatorial Front PaSoK Panhellenic Socialistic Movement (ΠΑΣΟΚ) PMS Panhellenic Music Society (ΠΜΣ) SEKE Socialist Labour Party of Greece (ΣΕΚΕ) UPIC Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu USIA United States Information Agency (acronym used in Washington, DC) USIS United States Information Service (same as USIA but for overseas use) VoA Voice of America WDR Westdeutscher Rundfunk v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION........1 PART I: ‘The Great Idea’ CHAPTER 1. Music to Suit the Nation 1908. The Politics of Language: Kalomiris’s Athenian Début..….....12 1916. Who is the Master Builder? The Première of Kalomiris’s Opera……....34 1920. Barbarians Defeated: The Première of Kalomiris’s Levendia Symphony….......55 CHAPTER 2. Nipped in the Bud: The Short Story of Interwar Modernism 1926. Modernism as Social Subversion: The Athenian Première of L’Histoire du Soldat........66 1930. Barbarians at the Gates: Skalkottas’s Début in Athens….......89 PART II: ‘The European Idea’ CHAPTER 3. Working in Tandem 1962. Signposting a New Epoch: A Composition Competition….......123 1966. The Politics of Patronage: The ‘First Hellenic Week’….......143 1971. The Janus Faces of American Philanthropy: The ‘Fourth Hellenic Week’….......166 CHAPTER 4. New Music to Suit the Nation 1975. Culture and Diplomacy: The ‘Xenakis Week’ in Athens….......184 1978. The Past on Display: The Mycenae Polytope…....…209 EPILOGUE….......243 BIBLIOGRAPHY….......265 vi INTRODUCTION This thesis examines selected historical moments in the twentieth-century art music of Greece, relating them both to their immediate political context and to the two master narratives that to a significant extent have shaped the cultural profile of the modern Greek nation, the ‘Great Idea’ and the ‘European Idea’. These historical moments take the form of ‘musical events’, concerts for the most part, during which modernist musical works were first introduced to Greek audiences. Despite their broad stylistic heterogeneity, I use the term ‘modernist musical works’ predominantly as a convention to refer collectively to those works which acted as agents of innovation, and which either encountered resistance at the moment of their introduction (as they were often perceived as alien or as threats to established musical traditions and socio-political conventions) or, conversely, found widespread and enthusiastic acceptance as harbingers of cultural regeneration and socio-political change. Eleven musical events, which include the historical débuts of young composers, premières of musical works, composition competitions and concerts at festivals, are foregrounded in this enquiry, within an historical range reaching from 1908 to 1979. For each musical event I will question how the prevailing, often polarised, political climate affected the construction of its meaning. For instance, in some of these events we will note that sharp divisions in the reception of certain musical works were not related to their technical or aesthetic aspects but to the ideological agendas or the indirect political messages associated with them. But it is no less important to ask why radical modernist works entirely lacking such agendas also became politicised at their reception. Since certain of these later works were viewed as socially subversive, politically destabilising and culturally corrosive, the discussion will need to shift to their