From popular to esoteric: Nikolaos Mantzaros and the development of his career as composer

Published in 'Nineteenth-Century Music Review' 8 (2011), pp 101-126

Nikolaos Halikiopoulos Mantzaros (1795–1872) was a noble from Corfu and is better known today as the composer of the Greek national anthem. However, recent research has proved his importance as a teacher and as one of the most learned composers of his generation, renowned, in Italy and France as well as Greece.
The aim of this article is to present Mantzaros’ developing relationship as dilettante composer to the emerging European nineteenth-century music and aesthetics, as featured through his existing works and writings. In his early works (1815–27) Mantzaros demonstrates a remarkable creative assimilation of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century operatic idioms, whereas his aristocratic social status allowed him an eclectic relationship with music in general. From the late 1820s, Mantzaros also began setting Greek poetry to music, in this way offering a viable solution to the demand for ‘national music’.
From the mid-1830s onwards, Mantzaros’ already existing interest in Romantic idealism was broadened, affecting his work and thoughts. He stopped composing opera-related works and demonstrated a dual attitude towards music. On the one hand he continued composing popular music for the needs of his social circle, but on the other he developed an esoteric creative relationship with music. The latter led him as early as the 1840s to denounce the ‘extremities of Romanticism’ and to seek the musical expression of the sublime through the creative use of ‘the noble art of counterpoint’. This way he attempted to propose a re-evaluation of nineteenth-century trends through an eclectic neoclassicism, without neglecting the importance of subjective inspiration and genius.

«“Nobile Teatro di San Giacomo di Corfù”: an overview of its significance for the Greek ottocento»

Paper in the XI Convegno Annuale di Società Italiana di Musicologia (Lecce, 22–24/10/ 2004)

Challenging the Canon: Towards a history of Neo-Hellenic Music

Paper presented in the 'Society of Musicology in Ireland and Royal Musical Association Joint Annual Conference' (Dublin, 9-12 July 2009). Thanking Prof. Jim Samson and Dr. Michael Finkelman for their valuable remarks.

The Music of Ionian Islands (in Greek)

Chapter in collective volume 'Ionian Islands; History and Culture'  published in 2008

The Music of the Ionian Islands (in English)

Summarized version in English of a chapter in the collective volume 'Ionian Islands; History and Culture' published in 2008

«Musical echoes of the French Revolution in the Ionian Islands»

'Ο Eranistes' 26 (2007), 79–104 [published in January 2009] (in Greek)

This article examines the changes that were brought  to music in Ionian Islands due to the coming of the Revolutionary French Army (1797-1799), which heralded the fall of the aristogratic regime. Based on recently retrieved archival sources, details regarding the revolutionary 'fetes' in the Ionian Islands are reconstructed and the use of music as a propagandistic medium is underlined. From this point of view, of particular importance is the use of greek verse adapted on french revolutionary melodies, as it is designated by the archival material. It is also pointed out that the experience and the melodic rememberance of this politically orientated use of music remained, directly or not, vivid in the Ionian Islands during 19th century through the original (and sometimes 'monumental') patriotic anthems that were created by Ionian composers, who in this way expressed the romantic nationalism or the social struggles of their compatriots. It is also pointed out that french revolutionary melodies in greek verse constituted a significant part of the greek military music of the 1821 revolution in mainland Greece.