Ιωάννης Φούλιας: The composer Dimitri Mitropoulos and his relation to the Greek National School of Music

Αρχική σελίδα / Συνέδρια – ημερίδες – διαλέξεις

Ιωάννης Φούλιας, “The composer Dimitri Mitropoulos and his relation to the Greek National School of Music” [“Ο συνθέτης Δημήτρης Μητρόπουλος και η σχέση του με την ελληνική Εθνική Σχολή Μουσικής”], Μέγαρο Μουσικής Αθηνών, 18 Ιανουαρίου 2013.

Until very recently, all music works by the Greek composer Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896-1960) were regarded as having almost nothing in common with compositional techniques as well as stylistic elements typical to works that belong to the Greek National School of Music, written by composers such as Manolis Kalomiris, Emilios Riadis or Marios Varvoglis. However, recent researches especially on Mitropoulos’ early works come to shed new light on this topic, proving that his position in early 20th century Greek music creation is at least not as isolated as it was thought of, since some of his compositions are more or less representative of the broader music nationalistic tendencies of that era. This is particularly true regarding Mitropoulos’ Greek sonata for piano, which is one of his largest and finest works, as well as a remarkable singularity in Greek art music in general. Yet, this rather mature work, dated in 1920, constitutes nearly the end of the way that Mitropoulos occasionally followed towards this certain tendency, as several of his compositions from about 1913 onwards make clear. For this reason, it is indispensable to reviewing even some of the earlier and also little known works by Mitropoulos, in order to radically re-evaluate his relation to the nationalistic music idiom that was cultivated in Greece during the first decades of the 20th century.