Living Memories

Introduction: Modern Greek Poetry and Memory

“Eternal memory” is the final chant of funeral and memorial services in the Byzantine rite of Christian liturgy. Ancient in origin, this simple exclamation commends individual and communal human memory of the departed to the eternal God. In this concert, we offer a series of musical meditations on themes of loss, memory, and eternity in setting of texts written mainly by ancient and modern Greek poets.

All of the three modern Greek poets represented here – Kostas Karyotakis (1896–1928), George Seferis (1900–1971), and Odysseas Elytis (1911–1996) – were in some way touched by the traumas occasioned by the decade of conflict that accompanied the final decline and eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire: the Balkan Wars, the First World War, the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–22, and the exchange of over 1.6 million people between Greece and the new Turkish Republic mandated by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

Born in Peloponnesian city of Tripoli, Karyotakis came of age during this tumultuous period but avoided military service by obtaining a medical exemption. After graduating from law school in Athens he joined the bureaucracy of the Hellenic Kingdom to support himself as he pursued his artistic goals as a poet. Yet he could not help but be affected by the social and cultural dislocations that ensued from the Greek army’s ill-fated invasion of central Asia Minor and the Hellenic Kingdom’s subsequent absorption of at least 1.2 million people. “When you tied flowers” (“Ὅταν ἄνθη ἐδένατε”), the primary text that Dimitris Skyllas set in The Last Anthem, is one of two poems in Karyotakis’s 1927 collection Elegies and Satires commenting on what Greeks have come to call the Asia Minor disaster. As Dina Haas notes, “When you tied flowers” closely follows the course of the Asia Minor campaign, from the departure of soldiers on a wave of patriotic fervor to the humiliation of their retreat and the bitterness of death and defeat. 

Seferis, a career diplomat who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963, was born in late Ottoman Smyrna (modern İzmir). He was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris when his family was forced in 1922 to flee the city of his birth. Seferis would later selectively invoke his childhood home in poems that he wrote between the 1930s and the 1960s. For the most part he avoided explicit references to the Asia Minor disaster, preferring instead to set his recollections of Smyrna within a wider landscape of Greek memory reaching from ancient past to modern present.

Eleni Koutrianou has observed that while Elytis’s early poetry is clearly marked by the influence of Karyotakis, his later works assimilate the older writer’s achievements into a modern poetics drawing, in different ways than Seferis, from the deep wells of Greek cultural memory. The most famous example of this mature style is undoubtedly The Axion Estin (1959), an extended meditation on the relationship of the Greek people to their Mediterranean landscape that is tinged with surrealism as it synthesizes a wide range of poetic genres from Byzantine hymnody to folk song. Partially set to music as an oratorio by Mikis Theodorakis in 1964, The Axion Estin was recognized as one of his greatest achievements when Elytis was awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature.

About the Composers and Their Music

Sir John Tavener: Eonía

For a little over two decades following his reception into the Orthodox Church in 1977, Sir John Tavener (1944–2013) devoted most of his energy as a composer to exploring themes from the sacred and secular poetry and songs of the Christian East. His many choral and instrumental works from this period drawing on liturgical chants of the Byzantine rite are well known. Yet during the same years Sir John also composed a smaller but still significant body of music in which he used folk song and the writings of modern Greek and Russian authors to convey the same eternal truths through music. 

Eonía (Αἰωνία) was commissioned for the 27^th Seminar on Contemporary Choral Music held in 1990 at University College, Cork, Ireland. Dedicated to the memory of the mystically inclined visual artist Cecil Collins (1908–1989), its title refers to the traditional memorial acclamation Αἰωνία ἡ μνήμη (‘Eternal memory’), which it never directly cites. Instead, it features a combination of liturgical, scriptural and poetic texts that include a Haiku by Seferis. Regarding this eclectic combination of texts, arrived at in cooperation with the nun Mother Thekla (the librettist for his opera Mary of Egypt and a frequent collaborator), the composer wrote: 

My work Αἰωνία is a Haiku or ‘fragrance’. I opened the Collected Poems of Seferis and found Το Γιασεμί – The Jasmin. At the same time I was talking on the telephone to Mother Thekla; I read her Το Γιασεμί, and she continued in English, then Slavonic, and then English. It was almost like dictated writing.

I was mourning my dear friend Cecil, and Αἰωνία is a fragile tribute, to the man I loved, and to his fragile, beautiful and iconographical art.

Christos Hatzis: Mystic Versicles

Christos Hatzis (b. 1953) was born in Volos, Greece and first moved to North America to continue his musical studies at the Eastman School of Music. Since 1995 he has been a professor at the University of Toronto. He has been recognized as “one of the most important composers writing today” (CBC) and “a contemporary Canadian master” (New Yorker). Hatzis has composed for forces large and small, cultivating a distinct breed of contemporary music which combines intellectual complexity and clarity, emotional/psychological directness and technical mastery of various media and musical idioms. His music is performed around the world and has won both Grammy (Hilary Hahn’s 2015 Deutsche Grammophon recording In 27 Pieces, which includes Hatzis’s Coming To) and Juno awards.

Odysseas Elytis wrote “Mystic Versicles for a Matins at the Hermitage of Apollos” in 1972 and subsequently published it in a volume entitled The Stepchildren. Having rarely been reprinted or translated in poetic anthologies, it is one of his most concentrated and complex shorter poems. The “Apollos” of its title is the Alexandrian Jew mentioned in Acts 18:24–19:1 who preached powerfully about Jesus in Ephesus and Corinth.

In February 2022 Hatzis composed the setting of “Mystic Versicles” for Byzantine cantor and mixed choir being premiered at these concerts. He subsequently created arrangements for Violin, Organ and Soprano (2022) and Cantor with String Quartet (2024). The composer offers the following account of his fascination on discovering the poem and how he came to set it to music:

In 1996, when I first came across the poem “Aposticha mystika for an orthros at the hermitage of Apollos” by the Greek poet Odysseus Elytis, I was so stricken by the imagery and liquid meanings of Elytis language that almost automatically I came up with a melody for cantor in response to a couple of stanzas in the middle of the poem. The music was composed in the Byzantine cantorial style, a style I remembered from my childhood years when I served as a “droner” at the analogion [cantor’s stand] of our parish church, The Metamorphosis of Our Savior. In this poem but also elsewhere, Elytis’s language takes advantage of the implicit semantics and resonance of choice words which reference the age-old Greek Orthodox hymnology. He does so in a way that, even though his intention is not a religious one, he can send the Greek reader towards a reflex association with that tradition, for no other reason than to perform a sharp cognitive pivot to an entirely different semantic association. Elytis is a conjurer. He intuits where you will involuntarily go with your associative mind, so he meets you there so he can bounce you towards a completely different direction, invariably catching you by surprise. (The fact that he is already waiting there for your arrival, speaks volumes to his intuitive poetic genius.)

Like most people, I was initially baffled with why the Byzantine cantorial style, which is almost exclusively used for the Orthodox worship, would be even remotely appropriate for the music setting of a modern Greek poem. My instinct and impulse for this poem, however, were so strong that I had no time to entertain such reasonable questions. I quickly grabbed a piece of music manuscript paper and a pencil and jotted down the tune that had entered my mind uninvitedly and placed the note on a pile with other random musical ideas on paper. Soon after that musical epiphany, I too pivoted to other composing projects. Years later, I had not only lost my handwritten manuscript, but I had also forgotten the title of the poem entirely and, of course, the music that I had composed for part of it.

Fast forward twenty-six years, to January 2022. I had just arrived in Agria, a suburb of Volos, Greece, my birthplace and home during my childhood and adolescence, for a six-month sabbatical leave from the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. It was by far the longest time I lived outside North America since 1974, the time I moved to the USA for university studies and to Canada eight years later. On the top of my wish list after I moved to Volos was the resolve to attend a Sunday service at the Evangelistria Church in Volos to listen to the cantor Vassilis Agrocostas, one of my favourite Greek Orthodox cantors and a friend of many years. The experience was transformative. My mind was buzzing again with childhood musical and other memories which I had considered irretrievably lost. After the service Vassilis and I sat down for a coffee nearby at which time Ι emphatically expressed my admiration for his art. Knowing his interest in us collaborating on a project together, I mentioned my 26-year-old obsession with the Elytis poem but added that I had completely forgotten the small segment of music that I had created for it and, more embarrassingly, even the title of the poem, save the opening two words «Ξύπνησες Αδάμ» [“Adam, you awakened”]. Trying to conceal his amusement, Vassilis suggested the obvious: “Google ‘Elytis’ and the two words you remember, and you should get the rest”. Clearly my mind was still back in 1996 mode.

When I returned to my temporary home in Agria, I did just that. Not only the poem appeared in front of my eyes on my laptop screen, but the completely forgotten and seemingly irretrievable melody that I had created 26 years earlier suddenly resurfaced as if it was always there embedded in my memory, and as pristine and vivid as the first time. I took no chances this time and went immediately to my music notation software to document it, but I could not stop with just the 1996 segment. I kept on setting the rest of the poem with such a feverish speed and intensity that I didn’t even stop to think that this poem, which by now had completely besieged me, was by a major Greek poet, and a Nobel Prize laureate at that, and it was still under copyright restrictions. (Come to think of it, Odysseus Elytis had passed away in March 1996, a fact completely unknown to me at that time. It was around that time I serendipitously first came across this fascinating literary masterpiece which immediately possessed me.) Back at present time, and at a moment when I came up for breath from my creative obsession, these more worldly matters suddenly rang like an alarm. I searched for the copyright holder, Ioulita Iliopoulou, Elytis’s widow and a significant Greek poet in her own right. I contacted her asking for permission for this setting. After several initially fruitless email exchanges, Ioulita gave me permission to use the poem and I feel eternally grateful to her for indulging my desire to do this setting. Her initial concern was that Odysseus Elytis was not interested in religious dogmatism, so I assured her that neither was I. My obsession with this poem was that a quasi “Byzantine” music setting would send the listener further towards the direction that Elytis was already sending his Greek reader by providing the “cognitive bait” that I was understanding as the poet’s “surrealist” (I prefer, “conjuror-like”) cognitive strategy. Ultimately, whether this strategy was embedded in the poem itself or it was an egotistical projection on my part could only be verified in front of an unsuspecting audience with me “studying” their unconscious reactions on their faces during a physical performance.

Mikis Theodorakis: Requiem

As a composer, Mikis Theodorakis (1925–2021) is best known to American audiences for his film scores from the 1960s, most notably including his music for Zorba the Greek. In his native land of Greece, on the other hand, he is remembered mainly for his seminal to so-called ‘popular art song’ (ἔντεχνη λαϊκὴ μουσική)—a genre setting the elevated poetry of Elytis, Seferis and other major figures in literature to music in popular styles—and his valiant resistance to the Greek dictatorship of 1967–74. Yet for much of his long career Theodorakis devoted himself also to the composition of so-called ‘classical’ art music including seven symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, chamber works, secular cantatas, and even a small number of sacred choral works on Byzantine liturgical texts. The first of these sacred works is a massive 1943 setting of the Hymn of Kassiane for 8-part chorus. Nearly forty years later Theodorakis returned to the composition of sacred music with a setting of The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (1982). With relatively simple choral textures, the Liturgy combines elements of the Athenian choral music he heard in his youth with the melodic style of his more recent popular art songs.  

In 1984 Theodorakis completed his second and final setting of a complete service from the Byzantine rite. Although he gave it the title Requiem,its subtitle “Service for Those Fallen Asleep” identifies it as the standard modern form of the Greek Orthodox Funeral Service. The composer himself noted that it marked a stylistic departure from his earlier essays in sacred choral music. It infuses the monumentality of early Kassiane with tunefulness, rhythmic vigour, and eclectic contrapuntal writing. Theodorakis originally wrote his Requiem for mixed choir, soloists and children’s choir, but precluded its (full) liturgical use by occasionally assigning texts for the celebrating clergy to the choir and vice-versa. Its identity as a concert work was reinforced in 1993 by Nikos Platyarchos’s creation of an authorised 1993 arrangement for full symphony orchestra.

On the present concerts we perform two movements from the original unaccompanied version of the Requiem with female sopranos substituting for the children. The Benedictions (Εὐλογητάρια) is a set of hymns that follows Theodorakis’s setting of selected verses from Psalm 118 (119). The hymns, which are the memorial counterparts to the resurrectional texts that Rachmaninov famously set in his All-Night Vigil, are a poetic extension of this opening psalm, employing its verse “Blessed are You, O Lord, teach me Your statutes” as a refrain. The Benedictions, like the Kontakion that follows it, liberally quote traditional Byzantine chant melodies for their texts.

Dimitris Skyllas: The Last Anthem

London-based composer Dimitris Skyllas (b. 1987) has developed a distinctive musical voice that bridges ancient and contemporary traditions, uniting sacred music, folk memory, and modern sonic ritual. His works have been presented in major historical and cultural venues including Westminster Abbey, the Barbican Centre, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Istanbul Music Festival, and the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. His composition Abyss marked the first public performance of Maria Callas’s restored historic piano. Skyllas’s life and career are the subject of a full-length documentary, Dimitris Skyllas: Afterpop (2022) produced by the Onassis Foundation and filmed at the BBC Studios. The documentary followed his rise to international recognition, marked notably by his becoming the first Greek composer commissioned by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Skyllas will serve as Composer in Residence at Istanbul Modern in 2025. His upcoming projects include a large-scale ballet scheduled for premiere in 2027.

Regarding the work receiving its North American premiere with these concerts, the composer writes:

“The Last Anthem was commissioned by the Istanbul Music Festival and its director, Efruz Çakırkaya, as an homage to the Greek and Turkish communities affected by the population exchange mandated by the Lausanne Treaty one hundred years ago.

The work draws deeply on both Greek and Turkish cultural traditions, from poetry to musical memory. Its sound world is shaped by sacred and folk influences, including Byzantine chant, Greek laments, ancient Greek tragedy, and Ottoman classical music.”

The Last Anthem received its world premiere in Istanbul on June 11, 2024. It is co-commissioned with Cappella Romana, who are presenting the North American premieres in 2025.

Alexander Lingas (incorporating material provided by the composers)