Mikis Theodorakis, His Music and Politics (Durrell Studies 6)
This is the only comprehensive musical biography in English of Mikis Theodorakis (1925-2021), the revolutionary Greek composer. The first edition (1980) was written with the assistance and support of Theodorakis himself; this new edition was commissioned after Theodorakis’ death and extends the assessment of his work to the operas, symphonies and other works composed since 1980. As a political figure in modern Greece, Theodorakis embodied the spirit of resistance to the abuse of authority, from the Nazi occupation of his country and the ensuing civil war to the military dictatorship of 1967-74 and beyond. Based on the author’s personal friendship and collaboration with Theodorakis, this musical biography is both a passionate and an authoritative account of the life-work of a man who became a popular hero in an age of anxiety.
I had become aware, and a huge admirer, of Gail’s 1980 work on Mikis Theodorakis. Her personal friendship with him, her musicianship and her capacity to write engagingly and with passion about his music and his musical personality, was impressive. When Theodorakis died, in September 2021, I asked Gail to consider a new edition, since the work Theodorakis had undertaken between 1980 and 2000, in particular – including four operas and also involving the ‘rediscovery’ of his early piano works and chamber music – was of enormous importance and demanded a new study along the lines of Gail’s original.
The result, forty years later, encompasses the new works and allows Gail Holst-Warhaft (in 1980, Gail Holst), to give a thorough reconsideration of the man whom she knew and befriended and whose work remains a vital element in contemporary Greek culture. As Gail shrewdly observes, the reputation of Theodorakis as a composer principally for the voice, the setter-to-music of the poetry which was closest to his heart, has allowed his more ‘symphonic’ work and his chamber music to remain not undiscovered, but appreciated to a far lesser extent than it warrants. I am confident that Gail’s advocacy, in this new edition, of this less-appreciated work will ensure that due attention is paid to it by musicologists and, more importantly, by the listening public.
Book Review by John Lucas
Ένα ταξίδι στο ρεμπέτικο για μικρούς και μεγάλους
A Journey into the Rembetika for Young and Old
A Journey into the Rembetika for Young and Old
Click here to listen to a radio interview about Greek music.
Nisiotika:
Music, dances and bitter-sweet songs of the Aegean islands
Music, dances and bitter-sweet songs of the Aegean islands
This book is about the living tradition of Greek island music. Nisiotiotika — which means ‘island-like’ — has come to define the music and songs that are played and sung at festivals and celebrations on the islands of the Aegean. Above all, this is music to be danced to, and as the book reveals, it is the dancers who call the tune.
The songs tell of the sea and those that engage in often dangerous sea trades, of love and of pretty girls, sometimes of historical events, but also of sadness and separation, of women who wait in fear for their husbands and sons to return from long voyages or faraway lands. Most of the songs are not very old and many probably date no earlier than the late 18th or early 19th century, although they borrow musical and poetic motifs from older forms of Greek folk song. The most common instrumental accompaniment to them is the violin, often played together with a laouto, or folk lute, but the bagpipes and the santouri, or hammered dulcimer, are also popular.
Like the rembetika, the songs of underground and urban Greece, the nisiotika only became pan-Greek music after the islanders emigrated, initially to the US and then later to Athens, when their songs were recorded and where a wider audience for their music was created.
Combining research by pioneering musicologists and her own research into recordings, the songs themselves and through interviews, Gail Holst-Warhaft has turned the same discerning and loving eye on this subject as she did in her now classic book on rembetika, Road to Rembetika.
The text is illustrated with many photographs and includes a collection of the songs in Greek with English translation en face.
Click here to watch videos of Nisiotika songs and dances.
Recent Articles
“Joshua Barley (translator) Greek Folk Songs.” Journal of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies (forthcoming).
“Lament and Elegy in Modern Greek Literature,” In Journal of World Literature, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 104–122. (Read Online)
“Greek Death Rituals and Laments,” In Oxford Handbook of Slavic and East European Folklore (forthcoming 2022).
Obituary, Mikis Theodorakis. London The Guardian. (Read Online)
“Transgressing Musical Borders: Re(m)betika as Liminal Music.” In Borders and Borderers: Explorations in Identity, Exile and Translation (Durrell Studies 1), ed. Richard Pine and Vera Kondinari. Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Three Poems published in Mediterranean Poetry. (Read Online)
One poem published in Anthology: Poems for the Year 2020, ed. Merryn Williams, Shoestring Press, UK.
Recent Events
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September 27, 2023
Athens, Megaron Mousikis.
Panel of speakers on Mikis Theodorakis: His Music and Politics, by Gail Holst-Warhaft.
Panelists: Stephanie Merakos, Asteris Koutoulas, Yorgos Demerdzis, Tatiana Papageorgiou, Maria Farandouri. -
September 13, 2023
Paxos Music Festival.
“Buried Treasure: The Avant Garde Chamber Music of Mikis Theodorakis” (with the Athens String Quartet). In English.
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September 10, 2023
Solomos Museum, Corfu, Greek.
“In the Beginning Was the Word: The Marriage of Music and Poetry in the Work of Mikis Theodorakis”
Recent Awards
Honorary Membership of the Organization “Friends of Greek Music.” Presentation of the plaque during the event at the Megaron on September 27th 2023 by the President of the organization, Mr. Panos Dimaras.
Honored by the Academy of Athens for her work on Greek music and literature in November, 2023.
Recent Interviews
With iEidisis
With Monogramma
With online Greek journal lifo
Maria Farantouri Brings Songs Of Resistance To Carnegie Hall
For interviews and appearances, contact Gail Holst-Warhaft at
